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DEDICATION. 

TO MA WIFE, 

WHO HAS BEEN ALWAYS 

f 

LOVING, TRUE, AND PATIENT WITH ME, 

I DEDICATE 


THIS 

LITTLE YOLUME. 


DILLON O’BRIEN. 


St. Paul, Minn., June 19th, 1873. 






DEAD BROKE, 


A WESTERN TALE. 


y 

By DILLON O’BRIEN. 



FAITH IN d'O D. 
FAITH IN MAN. 
FAITH IN FORTUNE. 


SAINT PAUL; J 


PIONEER COMPANY PRINT, 

1 87 3 . 







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, 

By Dillon O’Bribn, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 


DEAD BROKE. 


PARI I. 


Before Michigan was yet a State, Doctor Robert 
McGregor emigrated from Scotland and settled in 
the Territory. • He was a widower, and brought with 
him his only child, a boy bearing his own name. 

Whether or not the doctor bore any relationship 
to the famous Rob Roy McGregor, whom the genius 
of Scott has raised from a Highland cattle lifter in- 
to a hero of romance, he certainly in no way re- 
sembled him in character, for the doctor was a 
quiet, honest gentleman, somewhat reserved in 
manner, and withal a most excellent physician. 

Doctor Robert McGregor’s settling in this out of 
the way Western little village, was for some time 
quite a mystery to his pioneer neighbors, for he 
seemed a man amply provided with means, was 
past the period when men are often led by the love 
of adventure to seek frontier life, and neither in 
his actions or conversation was there evidence to 


4 


DEAD BROKE. 


denote that there was any portion of his past he 
wished to forget or conceal. 

The greatest mystery Mrs. Grundy — and she lives 
in the wilderness as well as the city — can meet 
with, is, no mystery at all. 

The doctor evidently should have had a mystery 
connected with him, a skeleton that Mrs. Grundy 
would unearth, and he had not one. 

But when curiosity and conjecture died awa}^, 
a better and more lasting feeling took their place, 
i. ^., respect. 

In truth, his residence among them was a sub- 
stantial benefit to the settlers scattered over a wide 
section of country. His practice soon became ex- 
tensive in breadth of territory at least, if not very 
remunerative, for fully two-thirds of his patients 
were always on the free list. 

Indeed, it was said that the doctor was frequently 
imposed upon ; but I do not think so, for in his 
quiet way he was a keen observer, but not being a 
saint by any means himself, he did not look for 
perfection in others, and I am inclined to believe 
that he often lent himself and became, as it were, 
a party to what people, who had no earthly busi- 
ness to interfere, called imposition. 

For instance, a poor settler in the neighborhood 
lost his cow, his only one ; and his wife, heretofore 
as healthy a wench as one could find in a week's 
journey, was very suddenly taken ill, and sent for 
the doctor. 

He went, listened to a recital of the symptoms, 


DEAD BROKE. 


5 


during which the loss of the cow was more than 
once alluded to, and then spoke to her kindly and 
encouragingly. 

He left without having ordered any medicine ; 
“but sure,” as the patient remarked afterward to 
a neighbor, “his kind voice was worth all the physic 
in a drug store,” and the next morning a cow from 
his own yard stood at the poor settler’s door, and 
the patient was so far recovered, that on the even- 
ing of the same day she milked the cow. 

There was a little man named Solomon Weasel 
living in the village, who, during the week, sold 
small quantities of tea, sugar, soap, and candles to 
the villagers — and made the quantities still smaller 
by giving light weight — and on Sunday sang psalms 
through a long nose that started from its base 
toward the left, and then suddenly diverged and 
pointed to the right. I am thus minute in describ- 
ing this nose, because I believe that its peculiar 
formation was a beautiful design of nature to assist 
holy shakes. Keeping also a stock of simple med- 
icines, he regarded himself as by right, a kind of 
coadjutor of the doctor’s — a claim not at all allowed 
by the latter, who always avoided any intimacy 
with him — and hearing of this case, and of the sud- 
den recovery of the woman, he called on the doctor 
for the purpose of disclosing to him the “ gross im- 
position” that had been practiced upon him, and 
giving him some friendly warnings for the future, 
deeming this an excellent opportunity to ingratiate 
himself into the doctor’s favor. But the latter’s 


6 


DEAD BROKE. 


reception of him was too chilling to make him ever 
wish to repeat his visit. 

“As a physician, sir,” said the doctor, “I must be 
the best judge as to the reality of the poor woman’s 
sickness, and as the owner of the cow, best judge 
as to how to dispose of my property. ‘ Oast your 
bread upon the waters,’ sir ; at all events you will 
allow me to cast my crumbs as I please.” 

There were three things Doctor McGregor was 
passionately fond of — his books, his garden, and 
hunting ; the wild turkey and deer abounding at 
that time in Michigan, gave him plenty of op- 
portunity to indulge in the latter amusement to 
his heart’s content. 

As soon as the winter snow fell, the doctor set off 
on a tour that was half professional and half hunt- 
ing ; so while one side of his ample saddle-bags con- 
tained — with a change of clothing — bullets and 
powder, the other side was well stocked with medi- 
cines and surgical instruments. 

He used to say that all the old women of the 
country waited for this time to get sick, and the 
men to give themselves ugly cuts, bruises and 
broken bones, and as it was the chopping season 
in the woods, accidents no doubt were more likely 
to happen at this period than at any other. 

Whether his medical skill was required or not, 
the doctor’s visits to the settlements in the woods 
were always hailed with universal pleasure, indeed, 
not a little jealousy was evinced as to who should 
have the honor of entertaining him, and those most 


DEAD BROKE. 


7 


favored in this respect were objects of more or less 
envy. 

Of course there were favored ones, mostly old 
hunters, that were in the habit of joining him in 
his hunting excursions, when he came into their 
neighborhoods. 

Any one of these would be willing to swear that 
he could recognize the crack of the doctor’s rifle, 
and indeed it frequently happened that, guided by 
the report and the knowledge of the locality, some 
one of the doctor’s rough friends would hurry olf 
into the woods to meet him, and assist to carry 
home the game; while the good woman would tidy 
up the log cabin for this honored guest. 

Then, mayhap, when the shades of evening were 
closing around, the doctor would be seen emerging 
from the forest, his rifle slung on his shoulder, 
while a few paces behind came the settler leading 
the doctor’s stout Canadian pony, across whose back 
would be flung the body of a deer, while perchance 
a turkey gobbler ornamented its wide antlers. 

On an occasion of this kind, the doctor’s arrival 
would be known in the settlement within a few 
hours, and during his stay in the neighborhood, all 
his time within doors was occupied in receiving 
visits from the well and sick, and prescribing for 
the latter. 

Shortly after his arrival in Michigan, Doctor 
McGregor built — on the outskirts of the village — a 
substantial cottage, which he called Inverness Cot- 
tage, and to it attached an extensive garden. 


8 


DEAD BROKE. 


This aristocratic weakness, most innocently com- 
mitted, hurt the republican feelings of his neighbors 
very much, and militated against his popularity; 
but this feeling was only temporary, and in time 

the inhabitants of the village of P took quite a 

pride in showing to strangers visiting them, In- 
verness Cottage, and its well kept garden ; for the 
owner was a well skilled botanist, and kept a hired 
man, whose principal business it was to attend to 
this garden, his only other domestic being a middle- 
aged, respectable woman, who acted as housekeeper, 
and took care of his child while the latter was of 
an age requiring such attention. 

Besides the purchase of the ground on which the 
cottage was built, Doctor McGregor from time to 
time had bought several lots in the village, and a 
tract of wild government land in the immediate 
neighborhood, justly surmising that in time the 
property secured now at almost nominal prices, 
would become valuable, if not to himself at least 
to his child. 

This boy, when he arrived with his father in the 

village of P , was a warm hearted, imaginative 

little fellow, quick to make friends, and to believe 
in them implicitly, and this trust common to child- 
hood he carried with him into maturer years. 

There were many circumstances in his bringing 
up which tended to develop all that was romantic 
in his nature, and to let that shrewdness and com- 
mon sense — for which the Scotch character is pro- 
verbial — lie dormant. 


DEAD BROKE. 


9 


He attended the village school and learnt rapidly, 
and when of a proper age, his father instructed 
him at home. 

Doctor McGregor had brought with him from 
Scotland a supply of books quite sufficient to fill 
one side of his study in the cottage ; leaving room, 
however, between the top of the bookcase and the 
ceiling for the antlered heads of deer, trophies of 
the chase ; while on the opposite side were ranged 
rifles and shot-guns ; on this side, too, was a large bay 
window looking out upon the garden. This room 
was the favorite resort of father and son, both in 
winter and summer. Here the doctor, reclining in 
his large arm-chair — after a morning’s work among 
his flowers in the garden — would read some favorite 
author, or in the evening hear his son recite his 
lessons; and here during the winter evenings, when 
his father was off* on one of his hunting expeditions 
or attending a professional call, young Robert 
might be often seen sitting opposite the wide fire- 
place — whose huge back-log and crackling faggots 
gave out a cheerful warm blaze — quite absorbed 
in one of Sir Walter Scott’s historical romances. 
Burns’ ballads, or one of Cooper’s bewitching stories 
of the sea or forest. 

Such hours were perhaps the happiest in the boy’s 
life, but the most dangerous for his future success 
in this matter-of-fact Yankee land; nor as he sat 
there was there an uninteresting picture to look in 
upon : the large fireplace, the ruddy blaze throwing 
out its flickering light and shadow, to dance in 


10 


DEAD BROKE. 


grotesque forms along the walls and curtains — now 
glancing along the polished gun barrels, or light- 
ing up with a mockery of life, the glass eyes of 
the stags’ heads — and the slight form in the ample 
old-fashioned chair with intense interest resting on 
every feature of the young face. 

Left a good deal to himself, and allowed to spend 
his hours of recreation as his fancy might dictate, 
with an imaginative mind and affectionate disposi- 
tion, there was much in this boy’s surroundings to 
develop a romantic nature, that loved to fashion 
out of the realities around an ideal world of its 
own. 

For him the primeval forest surrounding his home 
was at his pleasure peopled with brave knights and 
fair ‘‘ ladyes along the blazed path through the 
woods, he saw the tall form of ‘‘ Le Longue Cara- 
bine ” advancing, his unerring rifle slung over 
his shoulder; or watched ‘‘ Le Gros Serpent” 
stretched beneath a giant tree, while “ Uncas” — his 
dark, sad eyes looking into space — listened to his 
father’s recital of the departed greatness of the 
Mohicans. 

In truth, young Robert McGregor was in a fair 
way to become the veriest dreamer that ever 
was, but for one healthy influence, the friend- 
ship of a boy about his own age, and the very 
opposite to him in many traits of character. 

If Robert McGregor gave promise of being one 
of life’s dreamers^ James Allen, or Jim, as he was 
known by his friends, was evidently cut out for one 


DEAD BROKE. 


11 


of its workers ; there was energy in every nerve of 
his little body, as he scampered home after school 
to do his chores. 

His father, John Allen, was the village black- 
smith, an honest son of Vulcan, liked by his neigh- 
bors, and earning at his trade a sufficiency to keep 
his family respectable and above want. He had 
lost several children, and when Doctor McGregor 
came to reside in the village, the blacksmith’s home 
contained but himself, his wife, and this, his only 
child. 

Allen had a great respect for the doctor, and 
their intercourse was always of the most friendly 
nature, a state of feeling which may have had its 
origin in the fact that the blacksmith was of Scotch 
descent, but which required no such auxiliary to 
make it lasting. 

Frequently in the fall, returning from a day’s par- 
tridge shooting in the woods, the doctor, late in the 
afternoon, would drop into the bla^cksmith’s shop to 
have a friendly chat, and there remain sometimes 
until the shades of evening fell, carelessly leaning 
against the wall, his dog lying at his feet, and his 
hands resting on his gun, while the sturdy black- 
smith drew the glowing bar of iron from the fire, 
and with lusty strokes sent the red sparks flying 
around the forge, the cheerful ring of the hammer 
making a fitting accompaniment to his loud voice 
and merry laugh. 

On certain Scotch festivals, too, the doctor always 
gave him a formal invitation to take a glass of 


12 


DEAD BROKE. 


Scotch toddy with him in his study, but notwith- 
standing the exhilarating influence which the toddy 
might be expected to exercise, the honest fellow’s 
laugh was never half so hearty on these occasions 
as when the doctor visited him in his own smithy 
or his own house. Having a general and warm 
invitation to do so, Allen in the summer months 
— when the doctor’s garden was clothed in all its 
glory — would bring his wife on Sunday afternoons 
to visit it, Jim in his best clothes walking with 
restrained steps by the side of his mother, while 
health and half an hour’s application of a coarse 
towel made his father’s face glow like one of his 
own heated irons. If the doctor was at home, he 
very likely joined them in the garden, when after 
a little Mrs. Allen would go into the house to pay a 
visit to the housekeeper, and the two men would 
continue their walk up and down the garden, dis- 
cussing the news of the day, the growth of the vil- 
lage, and the prospect of the crops, now and then 
stopping to look at a shrub or flower, while the doctor 
imparted scraps of botanical knowledge to his friend, 
which was received by the latter with great re- 
spect, albeit the knowledge thus conveyed passed 
from his mind as quickly as water through a sieve. 

But there was one who was always on the watch 
for such visits, doubtless having previous intima- 
tion of them. 

No sooner had the blacksmith opened the side 
gate and entered the garden with his family, tlfkn 
Bobert McGregor would issue from the house and 


DEAD BROKE. 


13 


go bounding down the walk, when he would be 
met half way by Jim, in an equally impetuous 
manner, making a collision — sometimes resulting in 
the shortest possible sojourn in a prickly gooseberry 
bush — of frequent occurrence ; then, when damages 
were repaired, both boys were off to the woods, 
the garden being altogether too small for a display 
of their youthful energies, and would not again 
make their appearance till hunger drove them 
home. 

On occasions of this kind they were met some- 
times on the outskirts of the forest by Solomon 
Weasel — who went there, as he said, “for sweet 
meditation,” never, however, venturing beyond the 
clearings, for he was a timid little creature, and 
though his faith was strong, his fear of bears and 
catamounts was stronger. 

As the boys approached him, leaping over logs, 
beating the brush with branches, striking at a 
snake as he crossed their path, and then flinging 
his dead body far off into the brush, the little 
man’s face would grow several shades more sour, 
and in a harsh, whining voice, he would reprove 
them for “ their willful levity on the Lord’s day ” — 
as if he who makes the flowers to give forth their 
fragrance, and the birds their songs on the Sab- 
bath, did not intend that on this day, above all 
others, man resting from his labors should re- 
joice amid the beauties of the earthly inheritance 
his Creator has given him. But Jim, with a harden- 
ed levity unpardonable in one so young, would in- 
2 


14 


DEAD BROKE. 


terrupt the pious reproof with a loud Indian war- 
whoop, and then in several somersaults and com- 
plicated evolutions, disappear from the good man’s 
eyes, followed by Robert. 

I have said that in many traits of character, 
these boys were essentially different ; however, they 
had excellent points in common, which helped to 
cement their friendship — both were manly, truth- 
ful, and affectionate, but in appearance there was 
not the slightest resemblance. Robert McGregor 
was tall for his age, with a slight elastic figure. In 
fact, he bore a striking likeness to the portrait of 
his mother, which hung in his father’s library, a 
calm face that might grow very sad — yet whose 
smooth surface denoted that care had not written 
on it roughly — with dark full eyes, an expressive 
mouth, and an exquisitely chiseled chin. 

This was the portrait of a delicate, refined woman, 
and her son, grown up in the woods, habituated to 
the roughness of Western life, his face browned 
by the summer’s sun, his features made coarse by 
continual and healthful exposure in the open air^ 
bore still a striking resemblance to it. 

James Allen, on the other hand, was short and 
thick, with the shoulders and arms of a young Her- 
cules; his complexion was what is called red and 
white, and although the sun waged a successful 
war against his turned-up nose, peeling the skin off 
several times during the summer, it never succeed- 
ed in making his complexion one shade darker ; his 
eyes were light grey, and he had the most obstinate. 


DEAD BROKE. 


15 


perverse, unmanageable red hair that ever bristled 
on a boy’s head ! Like Banquo’s ghost, it would 
not down.” 

These two boys, so different in nature and ap- 
pearance, were fast friends from the time they first 
met as children, and each exercised an improving 
influence upon the other. The practical energy 
and shrewd common sense of Jim — qualities which 
become so much earlier developed in the children 
of poor people than in those. of the rich — had a 
salutary effect in checking his friend’s excursions 
into dreamland, and dispelling his romantic visions, 
while the more refined organization of Robert 
McGregor, together with that ease of manner which 
he had acquired from close intercourse with his 
father, had a certain elevating effect on the mind of 
the blacksmith’s son — a polishing of a rough dia- 
mond without injuring its value. At school they 
sat on the same bench, and fought side by side in 
the play ground. Robert would never strike his 
adversary while down, it was unknightly, but Jim 
had no such refined feelings, and pommeled away 
with his little sledge hammer fists, whether the 
enemy was on his feet or his back. 

Even Cupid failed to divide these two friends. 

Both were warm admirers of Lucie Evans, a little 
orphan maiden, who lived with her aunt, a poor 
woman who had a house full of younger children 
of her own to care for, but nevertheless contrived — 
her husband being a sober, hard working man — to 
keep Lucie neatly dressed ; Lucie, indeed, was natu- 


16 


DEAD BROKE. 


rally so tidy a little body, that any kind of dress 
would look well upon her. 

Both boys were her champions at school — Rob- 
ert assisted her with her lessons, lent her books to 
read ; Jim carried off her sleigh to his father’s shop, 
and with some assistance from the latter, shod it. 
But, alas ! when did cold gratitude compete with 
warm fancy, without being obliged to succumb. 

The very next day when Lucie appeared on the 
school house hill, with the newly shod sleigh, it was 
Robert she invited to accompany her, and guide 
the sleigh. 

Down they went, swiftly coasting to the foot of 
the long, high hill, then slowly back, dragging the 
sleigh after them, slipping and laughing at every 
step, then down and up again, until the cheeks of 
the little maiden shamed the red lining of her hood, 
and her eyes sparkled brighter than the diamond 
hoar frost hanging from the boughs; so she ap- 
peared to Jim who stood watching them. 

As they ascended the hill for the fourth or fifth 
time, Robert looking up, saw Jim standing all alone, 
and in a moment he remembered that it was Jim 
who had shod this very sleigh for Lucie, and that 
she had not yet asked him to take a ride on it, so 
he said, “ Lucie, it is Jim’s turn next, he has not got 
a ride yet;” she gave a halt shrug to her pretty 
little shoulders, just as any other spoiled belle — 
much older — might have done, at which Robert 
looked cross, and said, “ Why, you know, Lucie, the 
trouble he took to iron your sleigh.” 


DEAD BROKE. 


17 


Oh, yes,” said Lucie ; “ but I think you steer 
better.” 

‘‘No I don’t,” said Robert; “ halloo, Jim, come 
and steer Lucie,” and away he went to join another 
party, and away went Jim and Lucie down the hill. 

That same evening, as Jim was preparing for 
supper, and looking in a cracked glass, endeavored 
to get the unmanageable red hair to lie down, he 
said to himself : “She likes Robert twice as well, 
and she’s right.” 

From this out it seemed tacitly admitted by the 
parties most interested, that Robert McGregor was 
the favored boy admirer of pretty little Lucie 
Evans. 

When Robert was thirteen years of age, al- 
though he still continued to attend the public 
school, his father commenced to superintend his 
education at home. At the earnest request of his 
son, the doctor proposed to Allen that James should 
study with the former, but the blacksmith, resting 
his hands on his ponderous sledge, shook his head 
as he replied: “Thank you, doctor, but no Latin or 
Greek for Jim ; what good would they do the boy? 
He must work at the anvil like his father and 
grandfather before him, and too much learning 
would make him upsettish like. In two years or 
so, I will take him into the shop to help me ; he is 
handy in it already.” 

“ He is a very good, manly little fellow,” said 
the doctor, “ and I am very glad he and Robert are 
such good friends.” 

2 ^ 


18 ' 


DEAD BROKE. 


Well, but arn’t they, doctor,” replied the black- 
smith. ‘'I never saw the beat of it. I wonder 
how it will be when Kobert is a fine gentleman, 
and Jim hammering away at the anvil. What are 
you going to make of Robert, doctor?” 

‘‘I will allow him to make his own choice, but 
first I shall try to give him as good an education 
as I can. Perhaps you are right about the Latin 
and Greek, but I have a pretty good stock of books, 
histories and works on practical science, and Jim 
is as welcome to their use as my own son, so I ad- 
vise you to give him as much time for reading 
with Robert as you can.” 

Well, it wouldn’t be very easy to keep them 
asunder,” replied the blacksmith, with a jolly laugh. 
And so it turned out that, while Robert was en- 
gaged in study, according to the system his father 
had marked out for him, James was frequently 
reading some book selected by himself, generally a 
work treating on some branch of practical science. 
As for Robert’s highly prized romances, he utterly 
ignored them, either from want of taste for such 
reading, or that Robert, by oral instruction, and 
continual spouting — as it is termed — passages from 
his favorite authors, during their rambles in the 
woods, had given him a surfeit of this kind of liter- 
ature. 

This reading in the cosy study on winter even- 
ings was pleasant work. When the doctor was 
present, absorbed in his book, the boys would pass 
from reading to converse in low tones with one an- 


DEAD BROKE. 


19 


other; sometimes plans for the future were dis- 
cussed, without any very definite conclusions being 
arrived at, at least so far as Robert was concerned. 
One scrap of conversation will illustrate many sim- 
ilar ones. 

What will you be, Robert, when you are a man ?” 
asked James one evening, while the doctor dozed 
in his chair, and the boys whispered in a corner in 
under tones, not to disturb him. 

“ I don’t know. I tell you what, I would like to 
have been one of those splendid knights of old, 
with belted sword and lance, and pennon gaily fly- 
ing, riding forth on my fiery steed. But those days 
are all past.” 

Small loss,” said Jim. 

‘‘ What would you like to be, Jim ?” 

machinist, and I will be one. Father will 
soon take me into the shop, but I’m bound to know 
something more than blacksmith’s work. Did you 
read about the ‘fly wheel,’ Robert?” 

“ No ; what fly wheel ? ” 

“ What fly wheel?” repeated James, indignantly. 
“ Why, the fly wheel which regulates all the machin- 
ery in one of those big factories down East. I was 
reading an account of it when you called me over. 
It’s more useful in the world than your crack- 
brained knights ever were.” 

“ But, Jim, if you are a machinist, your face will 
be always black.” 

“ Soap is cheap,” answered Jim, “ and I can 
wash it. I’m not like you, Robert ; my father is a 


20 


DEAD BROKE. 


workman, and I’m going to be one. Your father is 
a big bug, and 1 suppose he can make one of you if 
he likes.” 

I wish, Jim,” said Robert, ‘‘ that you would not 
call my father a ‘ big bug.’ ” 

Why not ?” 

Because he is a gentleman.” 

“ What is the difference ?” 

‘‘ Why, any fellow with money can be a ‘ big bug,’ 
but it takes a gentleman to be a gentleman.” 

This very lucid explanation seemed to bother Jim 
for a moment, then he asked : “ Can a machinist 
be a gentleman, Robert?” 

“ Yes, he can,” said his friend. 

“ Then see, Mr. Robert, if I won’t be a gentleman 
as well as the best of you.” 

The latter part of this conversation was held con- 
siderably above a whisper, and reached the doctor’s 
ears. He called Jim over to him, and the boy, 
with a flushed face at being overheard by the doc- 
tor, stood before him and looked full into his eyes. 

The old gentleman laid his hand kindly on the 
boy’s shoulder. 

“Be a true man in everything, James,” he said, 
“ and you will be a gentleman.” 

And in all his after life, amid rough companions 
and wild scenes, these words were never forgotten 
by him to whom they were addressed. 


DEAD BROKE. 


21 


PART IL 

Time sped on, making changes in the village of 

P as elsewhere. Indeed, change, growth and 

development is the normal state of the West. No 
settling down for any length of time out West in a 
quiet little village, and being on familiar terms 
with its one constable, whose public duties are so 
light as to allow him to unbend from the dignity 
of official position, and bring to you your weekly 
or tri- weekly mail on the arrival of the stage ; 
a condescension which weakens the authority of 
this public functionary with the urchins who crowd 
around the stage on its arrival, deeming it to have 
come from some very distant country, and looking 
upon its driver as a very wonderful traveler, indeed, 
whose unbroken vocabulary of oaths excites their 
admiration and emulation. No sooner do you settle 
in 3mur out-of-the-way Western little village, es- 
caped, as you foolishly imagine, from politicians, 
lawyers, editors, and all the other ills of civiliza- 
tion, and hug yourself with the idea that the world 
may wag on without you, than it comes wagging 
right into your retreat. Engineers, without as much 
as, by your leave, plant their instruments in your 
flower beds, and an unsightly brown three-story 
elevator goes up in front of your cottage, shutting 
out all view. 

A railway director, in your very presence, point 
ing his finger toward your house, says quite coolly 


22 


DEAD BROKE. 


to an engineer, “We must get that out of the way, 
Thompson.” The swift-flowing, pure river, that 
you called, after Bryant’s beautiful poem, “ The 
River of Green,” becomes the dirtiest, noisiest place 
in the whole neighborhood, from the mills built 
along its banks. Lawyers and insurance agents 
flock in^ lawsuits and fires prevail. Two news- 
papers continually proclaim to the world that the 
human intellect is altogether too limited to com- 
prehend, in the remotest degree, the future great- 
ness of Frogtown. And where you fished for trout, 
speculators fish for gudgeons. 

A few years after Doctor McGregor had settled 
in Michigan, it became a State, and the village of/ 

P began to grow into the proportions of quite 

a respectable sized town. So that after a while his 
cottage was no longer in the suburbs, but sur- 
rounded with brick houses of far greater preten- 
sions. However, it still had its beautiful garden, 
which despite its red brick neighbors, retained for 
it its rural appearance. 

By the time that P had fifteen hundred in- 

habitants — and claimed three thousand — it had a 
fire brigade, a bank, several societies — the latter 
of great benefit to numerous saloons, and of great 
detriment to domestic happiness — and two news- 
papers, “The Banner of Freedom,” and “The 
Trumpet of Liberty.” 

Then the ambition of P rose in its majesty, 

and through its member it applied to the Legisla- 
ture for a city charter. 


DEAD BROKE. 


23 


It was a mere matter of form to obtain such — 
for I have known a Western city with but one 
tumble-down shanty in it — nevertheless, on this 
occasion, the honorable member representing the 

district in which P was, deemed it due “ to 

the glorious State, whose citizen he was, to the 
republic — the home of freedom, the dread of 
tyrants — which has lately added this beauteous gem 
to its diadem, to the influential and intelligent 
constituents who had so honored him as to elect 
him as their representative, an honor altogether 
unsought by him,” (he had spent a considerable 
sum in forty-rod whiskey, and six months in elec- 
tioneering for the nomination,) to depict in a 
speech of an hour and a half, and replete with 
bombast, slang and bad grammar, the future great- 
ness of P , as the “ emporium of commerce, the 

seat of learning, and the stronghold of republican 
liberty,” and concluded with a glowing panegyric 
on the “ American Eagle,” as the noble bird dis- 
appeared in the lofty clouds of the honorable gentle- 
man’s eloquence. 

This speech was received in P with conflict- 

ing opinions, according to the political feelings of 
its critics. 

The editor of the “ Banner of Freedom ” (Whig) 
pronounced it, “the best eifort of our gifted mem- 
ber, the Hon. Columbus Stubbles, and deemed that 
without doubt the occasion did much to inspire his 
eloquent tongue ;” while the editor of “ The Trumpet 
of Liberty ” (Democrat) “ thought that old Stubbles 


24 


DEAD BKOKE. 


must have been drunk when he talked such down- 
right balderdash.” 

“ As an orator and debater, the Hon. Columbus 
Stubbles has by this speech made his mark,” said 
the “Banner of Freedom.” 

“He has made a downright ass of himself,” said 
the “ Trumpet of Liberty.” 

However, P got its charter, and set about 

electing its mayor and city council. 

The names of the two editors in P were 

whimsically appropriate. Dumpling, the editor of 
the “ Banner,” was exceedingly short and fat, while 
Crane, the editor of the “Trumpet,” was in an equal 
degree tall and thin. These personal characteris- 
tics were the objective points that they generally 
selected in their perpetual wordy war with each 
other ; sometimes one or other of them would be able 
to make an accusation against his brother editor, 
more damaging than anything connected with per- 
sonal appearance, and such opportunities were 
eagerly sought for, but the leanness or fatness of 
the party attacked generally supplied the adjec- 
tives of the damaging articles. Crane did not be- 
lieve that he would be performing his duty to so- 
ciety by simply proving to the world that Dump- 
ling was a ruffian, he must prove him to be a “ fat 
ruffian ;” while in an article of two columns length 
in the “ Banner,” in which Dumpling conclusively 
convicted Crane of arson, murder, bigamy and petty 
larceny, he closed by saying: “We don’t believe 
that we have left the lean rascal a hole small 


DEAD BROKE. 


25 


enough for him to crawl through.” In their more 
playful sallies, Crane feared that if Dumpling put 
so much of his nature (lard) into his articles, they 
would disagree with his few readers, and Dumpling 
announced in the “ Banner,” under the head of 
“ singular accident,” that the editor of the “ Trump- 
et,” in rushing down stairs to meet his only cash 
subscriber, came in contact with the latter, and 
nearly cut him in two. 

At this time, in the West, country editors were 
mostly paid by their subscribers in produce, a cord 
of wood being deemed an equivalent for a year’s sub- 
scription, butter and vegetables rating according 
to the market; subscribers were artfully enticed 
into adding to the regular tariff by presents, which 
were duly acknowledged by the editor, the value 
of the present regulating the length of the notice, 
and the praise bestowed on the donor. A good 
sized crock of butter was deemed worthy of a 
leader containing a short biography of “the up- 
right citizen and valued friend” who presented it, 
while a dozen or two of eggs would elicit some- 
thing like the following: “ Our jolly friend, farmer 
Grubs, laid on our table last week a dozen of beau- 
tiful turkey eggs ; thanks, friend Grubs, call again.” 
Of course, the wonderful Grubs, quite proud at 
seeing his name in print, called and laid again. 

Dumpling, being of a more genial humor than his 
rival editor, presents came into the sanctum of the 
“ Banner” far oftener than into that of the 
“ Trumpet.” What a pleasant way Dumpling had, 
3 


26 


DEAD BROKE. 


to be sure, of receiving such presents ; anything 
eatable he would smack his lips over, rub his 
stomach, smile all over, and punch his patron softly 
in the ribs. Then, when the latter had withdrawn. 
Dumpling would wink, with one of his fat eyes, 
over at his solitary compositor, and say : “ I’m the 
fellow that can tickle them.” But such undignified 
conduct was altogether beneath the editor of the 
“Trumpet of Liberty.” “I advocate principles, 
sir,” he would say. “ The Trumpet is the organ of 
great principles ; principles, sir, which you cannot 
eradicate from the Trumpet, without tearing down 
the pillars of the Republic ; principles which the 
Trumpet cannot abandon for a cord of wood or a 
fat turkey,” and he laughed bitterly, thinking of 
the plump bird he saw carried into the office of the 
“ Banner” the day before. 

The first election for city officers was a great 

event in P , and during the local canvass that 

preceded it, Crane and all the young Cranes literally 
fed on the fat of the land; for the Democratic can- 
didate for mayor, was a butcher of the name of 
Thompson, and the editor of “The Trumpet of 
Liberty ” had for the time being unlimited credit 
at his shop. 

Solomon Weasel had secured the Whig nomina- 
tion, and in the words of Dumpling, “ The country, 
with bated breath, awaited the issue.” 

Had the management of the contest been left 
between the two candidates, Thompson would un- 
doubtedly have beaten Solomon Weasel out of sight. 


DEAD BROKE. 


27 


for the former was a free-hearted fellow, and treated 

liberally ; but the politicians of F sided with the 

latter, and having denounced Thompson for attempt- 
ing to corrupt the people with drink, they went to 
work and saved a good many of the voters from 
such degradation, by buying them over to vote for 
their candidate. Solomon Weasel was elected mayor 

of the city of F , and three others — among whom 

was John Allen, the blacksmith — aldermen. 

The great contest was over, the world moved on, 
the country again drew its breath in a natural way, 
the editor of the ‘^Banner” was jubilant^ and the 
editor of the “Trumpet” returned to vegetable 
diet. 

Mean little souls never forget a supposed insult 

or slight, and his honor, the Mayor of F , was no 

exception to this. He had never forgotten the cold 
reception he met with when he called upon Doctor 
McGregor, or how the latter always avoided any 
familiarity with him, and he had scarcely been in- 
stalled in office when he began debating in his 
own mind if it was not possible, in his official capa- 
city, to “ get even” with the man he so thoroughly 
hated. It was not long until a plan occurred to him, 
one which he firmly believed would annoy the doctor 
so much, that the very contemplation of it brought 
a warm glow to his pinched face. It was nothing 
more or less than getting the council to pass an 
ordinance for the opening of a new street, which 
would run through the doctor’s garden, cutting it 
right in two. 


28 


DEAD BROKE. 


“ Inverness cottage, to be sure,’’ he said, see if 
I don’t come even with you, you old Scotch 
aristocrat.” He waited for about a month to ma- 
ture his plan, in the meantime discussing with 
the citizens the necessity of opening new streets ; 
and then, not without some wholesome dread of 
John Allen, submitted it to the three aldermen in 
council, having previously secured the support of 
the other two. 

The mayor was right in fearing John Allen’s op- 
position. When the honest blacksmith had studied 
the diagram prepared by Solomon, he exclaimed in 
tones of surprise and indignation, ‘‘Why, Mr. Mayor, 
this new street would go right through Dr. McGreg- 
or’s garden.” “Well, what of that,” replied one of 
the aldermen ; “ I guess public improvements can’t 
be stopped by any man’s garden.” 

“That’s what I say,” said Sims, the other aider- 
man. 

“ That’s the very view to take, gentlemen,” said 
the mayor, moving away until he had placed one 
of the aldermen between himself and Allen, for 
the latter, as he perceived how matters stood, was 
beginning to look dangerous; “I shall leave the 
whole matter in your hands; public duty, and the 
interests of our growing city, were my only motives 
for bringing it before you.” 

“ You lie, Solomon Weasel,” said the blacksmith, 
jumping up, and totally forgetful, in his rage, of the 
respect due to the august body of which he was 
a member, and to the mayor. “ You lie ; you are 


DEAD BROKE. 


29 


doing this through spite, because Doctor McGregor 
always knew you to be a sneaking hypocrite and 
thief, and treated you as you deserved.” 

“Order, order,” said one of the aldermen, vainly 
looking around to see if assistance was at hand. 

“ Oh, Mr. Allen, Mr. Allen,” exclaimed Sims, pale 
with fright. 

Weak as his honor, the mayor’s, limbs were with 
fear, he would have made for the door, but that the 
burly form of the smith was between him and it, 
and the windows were too high to leap from. 

“Order be ,” continued the smith. “Why, 

this garden is the pride of P , and the old man 

loves it; have you spoken to him about this new 
street ?” 

“ No,” replied the mayor. 

“ Ah, that’s like you, and shows your motive,” 
said Allen. 

“ I think we had better adjourn,” said Sims. “ I 
will call on Doctor McGregor myself about the 
matter, before we take any further stej)S.” 

While the motion to adjourn was put and carried, 
Solomon Weasel effected his escape from the coun- 
cil room. 

“ I’ll be even with him yet,” said he, as he hast- 
ened home; then, when he was under the protec- 
titon of his own roof, his courage returned, and he 
fairly swelled with rage as he thought of the in- 
dignity with which the blacksmith had treated the 
Mayor of P . 

“ I will have the rascal arrested,” he said. “ I 
3 ^ 


30 


DEAD BROKE. 


will take an action against him for libel ; I will 
have him prosecuted for assault and battery ; I will 
have him expelled the council ; I will have him 
bound over to keep the peace ; I will be even with 
him and that old stuck-up doctor yet; I’ll have two 
constables in the room the next time the question 
of opening the new street comes up ; see if I don’t 
get even with them all yet.” But, 

“ The best laid schemes 
Of mice and men, 

Gang aft aglee.” 

Doctor McGregor attended the next meeting of 
the council, and not alone consented to the open- 
ing of the street, but actually advocated it as a 
necessary improvement. “I have perceived for 
some time back,” he said, “ as our town grew, that 
my cottage was no longer in the suburbs, and that 
it would be necessary to curtail the size of my gar- 
den. That portion of it which will be taken for the 
new street, I cheerfully donate to the city, and,” 
(taking up his hat and bowing politely to the aider- 
men) ‘‘ you shall have a deed of it, gentlemen, any 
time you please.” 

“Well,” said Alderman Sims, when the doctor 
had withdrawn, “the doctor is a gentleman, and 
a good citizen, every inch of him.” 

“ Yes,” replied John Allen, looking over to where 
Weasel sat, flanked by two constables, and looking 
quite dumbfounded at the turn events had taken. 
“ Yes, you won’t find many like him ; but it’s a 
thousand pities to cut up that beautiful garden. 


DEAD BROKE. 


31 


Many a pleasant hour I spent in it with the doctor;” 
and the scowl with which he had regarded the 
mayor a moment before, passed away from his face, 
and gave place to a soft, thoughtful look. 

The new street was opened, and the lower por- 
tion of Doctor McGregor’s garden which it cut 
off from his cottage, he had divided into building 
lots ; these were quickly disposed of, and the doc- 
ter realized a considerable sum out of the sales, 
while the shrunk garden looked, if possible, tidier 
and more blooming than ever, and certainly more 
in conformity with the size of the cottage. 

Thus Solomon Weasel, his honor! the mayor of 

P , got even with the doctor ; and it would be 

well if every malicious rascal could get even with 
others the same way. 

Somehow the whole story got abroad, with many 
additions. Solomon Weasel’s threats to get even 
with the doctor had been frequently heard by his 
cronies, who, of course, retailed them, and as Ameri- 
can boys neither fear God or the d — 1, much less 
a mayor, Solomon’s dignity was often sorely hurt 
by urchins bawling from the corners of streets: 
“ Say, Weasel, how did you get even with Doctor 
McGregor ?” 

Indeed, after a few years, it became the popular 

belief of P , that Weasel had made Doctor 

McGregor’s fortune ; until hearing it said so often, 
the ex-mayor came to believe it himself, which so 
worried him, that he took to drink, and died not in 
the odor of sanctity, but of bad whiskey. 


32 


DEAD BROKE. 


PART III. 

While these changes were taking place in P , 

some of the characters in this sketch were becom- 
ing old, while others of them were advancing to 
that glorious period of life, when, with hearts and 
limbs fresh and strong, we long to enter life’s battle, 
and never dream of defeat. 

The sturdy blacksmith’s step had become some- 
what slow, although his lusty blows on the anvil 
still rang out as cheerfully as ever; and the doctor’s 
hunting excursions were now less frequent, and 
generally confined to the near neighborhood. 

The two boys had left school — James Allen, to 
work in his father’s shop — while month after month 
Dr. McGregor put off sending Robert to college, 
and the longer he deferred it, the more difficult he 
found it to make up his mind to part with him. 

Robert perceived the struggle in his father’s 
mind, and said to him one day: “Why should it be 
necessary, father, for me to leave you ? I am sure 
I can learn just as much here with you, as in 
college.” 

“Very well, my boy,” said his father, brighten- 
ing up, “ we will commence a regular course of 
reading to-morrow, and in a year or two hence you 
can choose some profession or business. 1 am not 
very uneasy about you, Robert, for we have a suffi- 


DEAD BROKE. 


33 


ciency to last both our lives, and more than this is 
a burden and a curse.” 

Lucie Evans, too, was now a beautiful, bewitch- 
ing little fairy — entering her sixteenth year — who 
had already driven half a dozen dry goods clerks 
to the verge of distraction, only preserving their rea- 
son by copious discharges of doggerel verses, which 
would have the very opposite effect on any unfor- 
tunate person compelled to read them. 

In this country we are apt to think that interest, 
regardless of personal merit, can secure any appoint- 
ment, from the lowest to the highest, and doubtless, 
in the main, this is true ; but there is in the American 
character a generous sympathy, a manly wish to 
help the weak, not found, to the same extent, in 
any other nationality. A deserving young person 
is never without friends in America ; a whole com- 
munity will acknowledge the claims of such, cheer- 
fully give a helping hand, and rejoice in his or her 
after success. There are many causes for the de- 
velopment of this disinterested sympathy. In this 
country, to which hundreds of thousands of poor 
strangers come every year, seeking homes, to give 
a helping hand has become habitual, and there is 
great satisfaction in giving a fellow a push ahead, 
when you know that he is likely to keep going on. 
In Europe, where the crowds are so great, and the 
passages to success so narrow, people undertake the 
work more reluctantly, from a conviction that they 
may have to keep pushing all the time. 

When a vacancy for a teacher occurred in the 


34 


DEAD BROKE. 


primary department of the public school of P , 

Lucie Evans — at the suggestion of the principal 
teacher, of whom she was a great pet — applied for 
the place, and notwithstanding that there were many 
other applicants, some of whose parents were per- 
sons of influence, Lucie was unanimously appoint- 
ed by the school board. 

“ She is an orphan, a good little girl, and a great 
help to her poor aunt, I am told,” said a good-na- 
tured member of the board, “ we must give her a 
chance.” 

‘‘ Of course, of course,” said the others. So the 
matter was settled, and Lucie duly installed in 
office. 

It was a pleasant thing to drop into the school- 
room, and look at little madam sitting at her raised 
desk and keeping order among her youthful sub- 
jects — the child-face calm and grave from the re- 
sponsibility of authority; and then when some hard- 
ened reprobate of six years old willfully broke the 
rules, to mark the contrast between the natural 
mirth of the young eyes and the attempted stern 
look of the other features. At first she found it 
somewhat difficult to walk home demurely when 
school was out, instead of racing away with the 
other girls, and swinging her bonnet by its long 
strings, but on the whole she adapted herself to 
her new position admirably. To the two boys — 
whose favorite she was at school — she appeared to 
have grown about five years older than either of 
them ; she told Robert that she expected soon to hear 


DEAD BROKE. 


35 


of his going to college, and “ knocked James alhof a 
heap,” by the matronly manner in which she ex- 
pressed her pleasure at his commencing to assist 
his father in the shop, and “ hoped to hear of his 
being a good boy.” 

When James Allen began to work in his father’s 
smithy, he had some misgivings as to his friend 
Robert McGregor; how would Robert, he thought, 
who was always well dressed, take to the leather 
apron and black face? There were plenty of well 
dressed young fellows anxious enough to be on 
friendly terms with the Doctor’s son, and James 
clearly saw that from henceforth the difference in 
their positions might make the future relations of 
himself and Robert very different from what they 
had been when both were children. 

In debating questions of this kind, we are very 
apt to be unjust, and to take a gloomy satisfaction 
in fully anticipating the supposed slight or injury, 
and being prepared to resent it. J ames had wrought 
himself into this gloomy state of mind, as on the 
second day after he had commenced regular work, 
he stood at the door of the smithy and saw his 
friend coming down the opposite side of the street, 
with two young gentlemen who had been staying 

for some time at the hotel in P , and were just 

come back with Robert from a fishing excursion. 

“No, I’ll not stir from the door,” said James to 
himself, “ if he wishes to pass with his fine friends, 
let him, the street is wide enough,” and he stuck 
his hands in his pants pockets, under his leather 


36 


DEAD BROKE. 


apron, widened out his legs, and squared his shoul- 
ders, to meet with becoming independence the sup- 
posed coldness, that for a moment his morbid fancy 
led him to expect from his friend. But how tho- 
roughly ashamed did the result make him feel. 
The moment Robert caught sight of James, stand- 
ing at the door, his whole face lighted up with 
pleasure, and leaving his friends to follow more 
slowly after, he rushed across the street, and taking 
the young smith’s hands in his, shook them warmly, 
then turning him round about, surveying him from 
head to foot, and laughing all the time, told him 
he never was so proud of him before, he looked so 
manly in his smith’s dress. 

By this time the two young fishermen had cross- 
ed over the street and joined them, whereupon 
Robert introduced them to his friend, “ Mr. James 
Allen.” 

“Where is your father, James,” he continued; 
“ these gentlemen are going to spend the rest of the 
day with me at the cottage, and I cannot do with- 
out you ; ah ! here comes Mr. Allen, and I will ask 
him for the loan of his apprentice.” 

“Not to-day, Robert,” said Jim, hurriedly. 

“Why, what’s the matter with the fellow ?” queried 
Robert. “ Perhaps, sir, you’ve grown too proud to 
know a ‘ ne’er-do- weal’ idler like me.” 

“ Well, Robert, I will follow you up after a 
little; go now, and don’t keep your friends wait- 
ing.” 

“ All right,” said the other, passing on, then turn- 


. DEAD BROKE. 37 

ing round he called out, “ mind, old boy, if you are 
not up soon, I will come for you.” 

James turned into the shop thoroughly ashamed 
of the wrong he had done his friend, in thought. 
“ What a nice fellow I was, to be sure,” he said to 
himself, “ to doubt Robert.” 

Doctor McGregor was a philosopher in his way ; 
he believed in the sentiment which the poet who 
wrote it, did not : 

“ Man wants but little here below, 

Nor wants that little long.” 

He was not soured against the world, nor weary 
of it, but weary of its petty ambitions and cease- 
less struggles for the beyond, which, when reached, 
lost all the charm that distance lent to it. 

In his youth he had fought life’s battle and won, 
and then, without regret, retired from the field — 
without caring to gather the spoils — to spend the 
remainder of his life in comparative solitude, happy 
in his daily communings with nature, and in doing 
good to those amongst whom he had cast his lot. 
As his voluntary retirement from the busy world — 
before its toil had worn him out, and left him un- 
fitted for tranquil enjoyment — had brought him 
happiness, it would not be easy to prove a want of 
wisdom on his part, in the step he had taken. But 
in imparting his peculiar views of life to his son, 
he forgot that he was influencing the latter to be- 
gin where he himself had left off, and that the phi- 
losophy which taught him to lay aside his armor 
4 


38 


'dead broke. 


and retire from the fight, might work very disas- 
trously in the case of Robert, if it induced him to 
neglect proper preparation for the strife, that, 
though unbidden, or unsought, might come to him. 
Yet, such was the tendency of Dr. McGregor’s in- 
fluence and teaching on the mind of his son. 

If his lot was cast in smooth waters, Robert 
thought, why should he seek the stormy sea be- 
yond. Sometimes, indeed, he felt ashamed of 
this aimlessness when he conversed with his friend 
Jim, and listened to the busy plans of the lat- 
ter — how ‘‘he was to become a master mechan- 
ic, make inventions, take out patents, be presented 
to the President, receive the thanks of Congress,” 
and then Jim would laugh his boisterous laugh, 
making Robert feel that work had its bright side 
too, and for the time he would resolve to be a 
worker among men. 

A happier home than Dr. McGregor’s could not 
be found in all this broad land. Peace, content, 
and love dwelt in it all the year round, with the ex- 
ception of one short period during the summer, 
when a brother of the doctor’s paid him an annual 
visit. Those visits became wholly discontinued 
from a cause to be hereafter stated. 

Two beings could not be more dissimilar in dis- 
position than Doctor McGregor and his brother 
William. The latter, who was some years the 
elder, resided in New York, where he amassed a 
large fortune by speculations, principally in real 
estate. By nature a miser, years and the acquisi- 


DEAD BROKE. 


39 


tion of wealth had increased his ruling passion to a 
mania ; how to make money, and how to save it, 
were his two absorbing ideas, and his annual visits' 
to Michigan were not caused by any fraternal feel- 
ing, but for the sole reason that he would be at no 
expense while taking the one month’s rest, out of 
twelve, which his doctor told him was necessary 
for him. 

To be a whole month away from business had 
a very damaging effect on his crabbed temper, and 
from his arrival to his departure, he visited his 
ill humor on the head of his unoffending brother, 
and tried the latter’s patience sorely. The good 
doctor had to be continually saying to himself, 
“ Well, he is my brother, a guest in my house, and 
he will soon be leaving.” This last thought always 
brought with it a sigh of relief. “ You were always 
a fool, Robert,” he would remark. ‘‘ Here you’ve 
buried yourself in this out-of-the-way place, when, 
if you had set up in New York, you could have 
made a fortune.” 

“ What good would that do me?” asked the doctor, 
one day, after listening to this indictment for at 
least the hundredth time. 

“ What good would it do him ? the fool asks ; what 
good does it do anyone ?” 

“Not as much as people suppose; 1 think, Wil- 
liam, you have been racing after money all your life, 
and caught it, too, yet you do not seem particularly 
happy.” This was a home thrust, and the miser 
writhed under it. His beloved money was assailed. 


40 


DEAD BROKE. 


and his barren, withered life did not afford one 
argument in its defence ! He lost all self-control. 

What are you going to make of that cub of 
yours he savagely asked. 

The doctor’s face flushed. “This is a little too 
much, William,” he said; “do you speak of my 
son Kobert?” 

“ Yes, of that young gentleman, if you like the 
term better.” 

“ Well, then, I intend that he shall be a gentle- 
man.” 

“ A nice way you are setting about it, allowing 
him to have for a companion an ignorant black- 
smith’s son.” 

“ Perhaps, William, your reading of the term 
gentleman and mine do not agree ; I mean by it, 
an honest, truthful, generous hearted man ; you 
would search for a long time among your dandified 
young gentlemen in New York, before you would 
find one among them possessing in a greater de- 
gree those qualities than this blacksmith’s son. 
James is a fine little fellow ; I am glad he and 
Kobert are such fast friends.” 

“ So it would seem ; he makes as free in this house 
as if it was his own; but I am mistaken if this 
young gentleman don’t turn up some day in the 
penitentiary; he has the regular gallows look.” 

This prophecy struck the doctor as being so ridic- 
ulous, that he took a hearty fit of laughter, which 
restored him quite to good humor, and taking up a 
book, he strolled out to the garden. 


DEAD BROKE. 


41 


As the above conversation was carried on in 
rather high tones, the two boys, who were in an ad- 
joining room, unintentionally overheard the most 
part of it. 

‘‘You must not mind what that old crabbed 
uncle of mine says,” said Robert 5 Jim’s face was 
flushed, Robert thought with anger. 

“Mind him,” said Jim, “not I, but Robert, did 
you hear what your father said ? Oh, Robert, he is 
like one of those old knights you read about, only 
ever so much better.” 

“It is too bad, that this old miser from New 
York, should come here to torment him,” said 
Robert. 

“ So it is,” replied Jim. “ Let’s try and get even 
with the old fellow, Robert.” 

“ How ? ” 

“ I don’t know, but if I hit on a way, will you 
back me up?” 

You may bet I will,” replied Robert. 

By the next day Jim had a plan devised to get 
even with the old miser, for his favorable opinion 
of him, and imparted it to Robert at school, who 
entered into it with the greatest glee. 

“ He spent all last evening trying to make my 
father miserable,” said Robert, “ and I won’t stand 
it. If we succeed, Jim, in fooling him, he will pack 
ofi* to New York, and never return, I hope.” 

The plan was a very simple one, yet it had fea- 
tures which Jim shrewdly surmised would be at- 
tractive for Mr. William McGregor ; the latter had 
4 ^ 


42 


DEAD BROKE. 


frequently regretted that he had no opportunity 
during his visits west, to buy any furs from Indians 
or trappers, all such sales taking place in the 
spring, before his arrival. ‘‘ It would be so pleas- 
ant,” he said, to make a little money, and not be 
idle during a whole month.” 

Jim generously proposed to befriend him. He 
should have an opportunity to buy furs. 

There was at this time, in the neighborhood of 

P , a vagrant Indian, who might be seen almost 

any day, lounging around the streets, who, retain- 
ing all the instincts of the savage, had engrafted 
on the original stock the civilized habits of drink- 
ing and swearing. 

The boys of P had abbreviated his long 

Indian name into Indian Dick. 

Jim and Robert knew, that for a few plugs of 
tobacco, Indian Dick could be got to do anything 
except honest labor, so they informed Robert’s 
uncle that they knew of an Indian from whom he 
could purchase a stock of furs. 

The miser caught at the bait, almost smiled at the 
boys, and told them that if he made a good pur- 
chase he might give them a York shilling. 

The next move was to find Indian Dick, which 
they had no difficulty in doing ; and on the pres- 
entation of some tobacco, and a promise of more, 
together with a silver dollar, the Indian agreed to 
play “ Big Hunter.” 

Accordingly, bright and early next morning the 
two boys had him in the woods outside the town ; 


DEAD BROKE. 


43 


Jim, with exquisite relish and taste, painted his dirty 
face, and stuck goose feathers all over his head, 
while Kobert rolled up in innumerable thick wrap- 
pers, half a dozen rabbit skins, until quite a large 
sized pack was made, which Indian Dick, with ar- 
tistic taste, tied with deer sinews. Telling him to 
remain where he was until their return, and that 
all he should have to do would be to grunt and 
unfold the pack when told to do so, the boys, al- 
most weak from excessive laughter, set off for the 
house. 

Had Doctor McGregor been at home, perhaps his 
very presence would have warned them to give up 
their wild prank; but he had left in the morning, 
and was not to return till the following day. 

Within an hour and a half after they reached the 
house, Mr. William McGregor was anxiously watch- 
ing Indian Dick as he leisurely opened the big pack 
containing the valuable furs, and grunted, in answer 
to the numerous questions the former put to him ; 
at length the furs were reached, the boys moved to a 
little distance as Indian Dick, with a stolid face and 
satisfied grunt, spread out the six rabbit skins before 
the eyes of the intending purchaser. A fearful 
change came to the face of the latter. A silent ag- 
ony of rage, before which the boys quailed — making 
them wish undone that which they had done — trans- 
fixed him, and left him for a few moments power- 
less to move or withdraw his gaze from the pack ; 
then he raised his eyes, and without regarding Jim 
or the Indian in the least, he gave Robert one long. 


44 


DEAD BROKE. 


concentrated, diabolical look of hatred, and walked 
silently away. 

“ Ugh,” said Indian Dick, “ him damn mad.” 

I regret that truth compels me to state the exact 
words of Indian Dick on this occasion ; I know that 
there are a great many people who would expect 
this noble red man to say, He is as fierce as the 
north wind rushing through the leafless forest,” or 
something similar; but Dick was a civilized Indian. 
Many good people had taken great pains to civilize 
him, and this was the depressing result. He said : 
‘‘ Him damn mad.” 

The two boys looked blankly at each other; Jim 
was the first to partially recover from the actual 
terror which this exhibition of downright terrible 
anger — witnessed for the first time — had inspired 
him with. 

What will we do, Kobert,” he asked. 

‘‘ I don’t know,” replied Robert ; I suppose 
there is nothing to be done now ; we have done too 
much already; my father is not at home, either, 
and I am afraid to meet that man alone. Did you 
see how he looked at me ? ” 

“ Did I ? I thought his eyes would burn through 
you.” 

‘‘ Ugh ! Him damn mad,” repeated Indian Dick ; 
‘‘ give Indian the dollar.” 

Robert handed him a dollar, glad to get rid of 
him, and Dick hurried off* to get satisfactorily drunk. 

“My father will be terribly annoyed with us, 
Jim,” said Robert. 


DEAD BROKE. 


45 


“ I’m afraid so,” replied the other ; “ and that 
frets me more than anything else ; who would have 
thought that the old fellow would get so mad at a 
joke. Well, he deserved what he got for the way 
he has been speaking of us, and tormenting your 
father all the time. If I was the doctor, I would 
have turned him out of the house long ago.” 

When the boys reached the cottage, which they 
did not do for several hours, they skirmished around 
it for a long time, and then cautiously entered at 
the rear. But William McGregor was not there ; 
from the woods he had gone direct to the hotel, and 
sent a man for his baggage, giving him a letter for 
Doctor McGregor, to be handed to the latter on his 
arrival home. Early the next morning the outwit- 
ted miser was on his way to New York. 

It would have been an easy matter for Robert to 
have thrown this letter into the fire, and given his 
own version of the affair ; but so mean a thought 
never entered his mind ; on the contrary, he deter- 
mined to hand it himself to his father, Jim insist- 
ing on being present, to bear his part of the 
blame. 

Doctor McGregor was greatly agitated when he 
read this letter ; it was couched in such bitter, cut- 
ting, insulting language, that it lessened in a degree 
the fault of the boys in his eyes. After all, what 
was it but a foolish boy’s trick, for at the time 
neither Robert or Jim was much more than thirteen 
years of age. Nevertheless, he was seriously angry 
with them, and reproved them severely, while he 


46 


DEAD BROKE. 


could not but admire the way each strove to take 
the greater portion of the blame on himself. 

“ It was all my fault,” said Jim, “ I proposed it to 
Robert.” 

‘‘Jim never would have gone on with it, only for 
me,” said Robert; “ and, father, neither of us saw 
the harm of it until it was done.” 

“ I believe you, Robert ;” replied the doctor, “ but 
my son, yours has been by far the greater fault, for 
you committed a breach of hospitality, and insulted 
a near relative. Now go away, and let me consider 
this matter over.” 

The next day he called Robert into his study, and 
dictated an apology, which he enclosed to his brother 
in a letter of his own, but the latter was returned 
unopened, and from that time all intercourse be- 
tween those ill-matched brothers ceased, a fact 
which could not have fretted Doctor McGregor 
much, although he doubtless wished that the es- 
trangement had taken place in some Jess objection- 
able way. 

To Jim’s great delight, he found himself as wel- 
come a visitor at the cottage, and as great a favor- 
ite with its owner as ever; but he never met Indian 
Dick without calling up to mind the look which 
Robert’s uncle had given his nephew in the woods, 
and the recollection of the incidents of that day — 
so funny in anticipation — never brought a smile to 
the faces of the principal actors, and all reference 
to the subject was studiously avoided. 

In long years afterward, when least expected. 


DEAD BROKE. 


47 


it was brought to Kobert’s mind with painful and 
vivid distinctness. 


PAKT IV. 

It was one of those delicious days in the Ameri- 
can autumn, so bright and exhilarating, so fragrant 
with balmy air, so beautiful in the clear heavens 
above, and in the variegated foliage beneath, that 
the mere consciousness of life seems happiness 
enough. It was the morning of such a day when 
James Allen entered the room where Dr. McGregor 
and his son were at breakfast. James was dressed 
in his holiday clothes, his face was all aglow with 
excitement, and the unmanageable hair showed 
that all that could be done to subdue it had been 
done. 

‘‘What’s up, James?” said the doctor; “ going to 
be married?” 

“No, sir; but my father is going to send me to 
New York, to learn the trade of a machinist.” 

“ I’m very glad to hear it,” said the doctor ; “ sit 
down, James, and tell us all about it, while you take 
a cup of tea.” 

But Jim was too excited to eat or drink anything ; 
however, he sat down and entered into the explana- 
tion the doctor asked for, while Robert listened, as 
the saying is, “ with both eyes and ears.” 


48 


DEAD BROKE. 


“I never spoke of it to father, though I often 
told you, Robert, I would be a machinist one of 
these days,” said James, laughing. “I had just 
completed a nice piece of work, and father said 
to me: ^ Jim, I can’t teach you any more ; you must 
go where you can learn to be a better tradesman 
than your father;’ so at home, last night, mother 
and he settled that I should go to New York; I’m 
so glad that I never teased father about going, 
though I longed to do so, so much ; and now it has 
all come from himself.” 

“ You seem pretty glad to be leaving us, Jim,” 
said Robert, in somewhat a reproachful tone. 

‘‘ No,” replied the other, in a cheerful voice. 
“ Sorry enough for home, but it is about coming 
back a good tradesman, that I am thinking. You 
see, sir,” he continued, turning to the doctor, “ there 
are so many improvements going on in machinery, 
that there are branches now in the blacksmith’s 
trade that were not known when my father learned 
it, and there would be no sense in remaining a 
common blacksmith, when one can be something 
much better.” 

“Just so,” said the doctor. 

“ When do you go, Jim ?” asked Robert ; “ in a 
month ?” 

“In a month!” exclaimed James. “No, in three 
days ; and now finish your breakfast, Robert, and 
come out, we must spend the day together in ram- 
bling over our old haunts.” 

“ If you do not intend to return before evening. 


DEAD BROKE. 


49 


bring a lunch with you,” said the doctor; “and 
mind, James, you will take supper with us.” 

In a short time both the young friends were out 
of the house. They were at that happy period 
of life when the dreams of boyhood still mingle 
with the hopes, ambitions, and desires of young 
manhood, and their near parting made them more 
fully conscious of the change that had taken place 
in themselves — that they were no longer boys. The 
sorrow, too, at parting with his friend, which quickly 
succeeded James’ first burst of joyous excitement, 
made him more capable of sympathizing with the 
more romantic nature of the former. And in this 
mood, the familiar scenes around him, seemed to 
wear a new beauty in his eyes. 

Leaving the town behind them, they entered the 
woods by the well beaten path. The fall frost had 
changed the uniform green of the summer foliage 
into an endless variety of hues — here was the gor- 
geous sumach with its blood-colored leaves, the 
delicate pink and pale gold of the young maple, 
the quivering, yellow leaf of the poplar ; nay, a 
thousand varieties of autumn shades, contrasting 
with the green foliage of tree and shrub that still 
retained their summer dress, while the leaves al- 
ready fallen and browned rustled along the path, 
telling that all this beauty was but the premonition 
of decay. 

“We will keep on to Prince Charles’ tree, Rob- 
ert,” said James. 

This was a magnificent elm tree which Robert 
5 


50 


DEAD BROKE. 


had named after the celebrated oak in England, 
within whose branches, tradition says, that Charles 
the Second once found refuge. 

Years before, when quite little fellows, Robert 
and James had grubbed and cleared the ground, 
sowing grass seed, so that there was now a nice 
greensward of tame grass beneath. 

Beneath this tree — in whose bark the irrepressible 
American jack-knife had cut in several places the 
names of ^‘Robert McGregor,” “James Allen,” and 
“Lucie Evans” — the young men sat down to talk 
over the intended departure of James. They scarce- 
ly had done so, when several squirrels came running 
down the tree, and coming quite close, raised them- 
selves on their hind legs, their bushy tails resting 
on their backs, while their brown eyes watched 
eagerly for recognition. This was a chosen spot for# 
lunching in the woods, and the habit made the 
squirrels quite tame, so that they had come to look 
upon the fragments as their just perquisites. 

“Here are our little friends, Jim,” said Robert, 
“come to say to you, good-by.” Then the two 
friends talked long and earnestly of the future. 

“You are making the first break, Jim,” said Rob- 
ert; “ and who knows where or to what it may lead ; 
at all events, I feel that the old days are over.” 

“But not the old friendship, Robert,” replied 
Jim. “ As you say, old days or young days — which- 
ever you may wish to call them — are gone by ; we 
are no longer boys. But give me your hand, old 
fellow ; and now, Robert, let us pledge eaoh other 


DEAD BROKE. 


51 


that through life we will always remain the same 
warm, true, loving friends that we have been.” 

‘‘ To the death,” replied Robert, as his eyes filled 
with tears. ‘‘ And here is the seal to the contract,” 
he continued, as he kissed James’ check. 

‘‘And mine,” said James, performing the same 
ceremony. 

How well this pledge was kept will be seen here- 
after. 

The evening was closing in when the friends re- 
turned to the house; and three days afterwards, 
James Allen was on his way to New York. 

Soon a letter came, announcing his save arrival, 
and then Robert and he became regular correspond- 
ents ; he also wrote frequently to his father, who 
always showed (with great pride) his son’s letters to 
Doctor McGregor. 

It had been settled before he left, that he was 
to remain away for two years, and when six months 
of the time had expired, a letter to his father came 
from James’ boss, speaking in the highest terms of 
his good conduct and smartness. “ I will send you 
back,” the letter concluded, “ as good a mechanic 
as ever went West.” 

But before a year had fully gone by, James was 
recalled home on account of the dangerous illness 
of his mother, and to his great grief arrived too 
late, she having died before his arrival. 

The death of his wife was a great shock to the 
sturdy blacksmith. The strong frame and hearty 
laugh that had so long and so well withstood the 


52 


DEAD BROKE. 


assaults of time, sorrow conquered with one blow. 
Who could have thought there was so gentle and 
loving a heart beneath that rough exterior. 

James, who had made up his mind on no account 
to leave his father at this time, did almost all the 
work in the shop ; and for months after his wife’s 
death, it was pitiful to see the old man, on his re- 
turn to his home in the evening, looking around 
unfamiliarly, yet with the loneliness death had 
brought to it. 

“Can’t you do anything for my father, doctor?” 
said James Allen to Doctor McGregor; “he mopes 
about all day, and he scarcely takes any sleep; 
he does not go to bed till near morning, thinking, 
I know, of poor mother. Oh ! he’s so changed, doc- 
tor. Is there no medicine that would do him 
good ? ” 

“I have no faith in medicine, James, in his case,” 
replied the doctor, “but much in kind attention 
and love. I know, my good boy, you are doing and 
will do all you can to help him and cheer him. Try 
and get him to work, and back to his old habits as 
much as possible. I will see him as often as I can, 
as a friend, and do my best to cheer him ; poor 
fellow, I did not know that he was a man of such 
deep feeling; but we are all mysteries to each 
other, yes, even to ourselves, I believe.” 

“ I miss my Martha, doctor,” said John Allen, in a 
subsequent conversation with Doctor McGregor, 
“ more and more every day ; she was no great talker, 
for a woman, but for thirty years she never failed 


DEAD BKOKE. 


53 


to meet me when I returned home from the shop, 
with a pleasant smile and a loving word,” 

Two or three months after his wife’s death, John 
Allen spoke to his son about the latter’s returning 
to New York, but James would not hear of it. “ He 
had learned as much of his trade as he needed,” he 
said. He now seemed as anxious to stop at home 
as he was before to leave, and his father, guessing 
the cause, endeavored to respond to his son’s filial 
affection, by wrestling with his grief and trying to 
be himself again; but it was only acting, after all. 
He worked in the shop, but the hearty laugh that 
used to accompany the ring of the hammer, was 
never heard ; to him that ring had lost its music. 
Amid the flying sparks he saw an empty seat, a 
lonely home, and the six o’clock bell, once so wel- 
come and cheery in its tones, sounded more like a 
dismal knell. 

And so, when the spring had passed and come 
again, the old man, without any positive sickness, 
took to his bed, turned his face to the wall, and fol- 
lowed his wife. The day before his death he called 
James to his bedside, 

‘‘I will never rise, James,” he said, “from this 
bed, and it is all the better, my boy. When our 
work is done here, God calls us. I have had a 
happy life, and I am thankful for it. The neigh- 
bors are so good and attentive, Jim, that they leave 
us seldom alone ; but we are so now; kneel down, 
Jim, until you get your father’s blessing. I am, to 
be sure, but an ignorant man, but it seems to me a 
5 * 


54 


DEAD BROKE. 


deal of knowledge comes to one when dying. I 
know, my boy, that the blessing I give you now 
will follow you through life. I dreamed last night, 
Jim, that your mother said to me, ‘ Bless our 
child.’ Was it a dream? Who knows?” 

While speaking he had, without any seeming ef- 
fort, raised himself up in bed, and now, with hands 
extended over the bowed head of his sobbing child, 
he said, in slow, solemn tones : 

“ I bless you, God bless you, and he will.” 

Happy is it for the child who thus receives a dy- 
ing parent’s blessing, and deserves it. 

After his father’s death, James received a most 
warm invitation from Doctor McGregor, to take up 
his residence at the cottage, until he had settled on 
his future course, and to this invitation Bobert’s en- 
treaties were added, but he could not be induced 
to leave the'house that had been his home for so 
many years. 

‘‘ Thank j^ou all the same, Robert,” he said. 
‘‘ You and your father must not be vexed at my re- 
fusal; but I will stop in my father’s house until I 
leave it forever. To leave it right olF would look 
like turning my back upon it, and the past, and I 
don’t want to do that.” 

This was in the year 1848 ; and a few weeks after 
, John Allen’s death, the whole country became 
electrified at the news of the rich gold discoveries 
in California. Every mail brought to the town of 

P new and wonderful stories, and confirmation 

of former ones. The truth was, indeed, wonderful 


DEAD BROKE. 


55 


enough, but exaggeration added such a coloring to 
it, that people got crazy in thinking of it. Follow- 
ing in hot haste the news of the discovery of the 
gold, came reports from, every side, of parties organ- 
izing and starting for the gold fields — some by sea, 
and others by the overland route. 

One of such an active, energetic temperament as 
James Allen could not escape the gold fever. Here 
was a field of adventure, a road to fortune open 
to him. But how to get there was the diffi- 
culty. His father had never laid up any money, 
and after selling out his good-will in the shop, pay- 
ing some small debts, and collecting those due, 
James found himself master of about one hundred 
dollars, quite sufficient to bring him to New York, 
where he had intended to go to finish himself as a 
machinist. He would require at least three hun- 
dred dollars to enable him to join any one of 
the numerous parties now daily preparing to set 
ofi* for the land of promise, by the overland route. 
Of so self-reliant and independent a nature, the 
thought of getting a pecuniary loan from Doctor 
McGregor or Robert never for a moment occurred 
to him, and when, with a flushed face and excited 
manner, he read to the latter some late accounts 
of the further discoveries of gold, and throwing 
down the paper, lamented his inability to make one 
of a party setting out on the 1st of the lollowing 
month from St. Louis, he was totally unprepared 
for the offer which his expressed desire naturally 
led to. 


56 


DEAD BROKE. 


“I shall be more than sorry, James,” said Rob- 
ert, ‘‘ that we shall be parted ; God knows for how 
long, may be for ever ; for years, at all events, and 
but that I cannot leave my father, I would go with 
you ; not that I care for this yellow dross, that is 
setting all you fellows mad; but if you have your 
heart set upon going, I see nothing to prevent 
you. You say you require but two hundred dollars ; 
I will give you that sum ; loan it to you, if your 
pride will not let you take a gift from your friend.” 

While Robert was speaking, Janies’ eyes were 
opening wider and wider, but when the former 
concluded, by oftering the required sum, young Al- 
len’s face flushed up to the roots of his red hair. 

“ I hope, Robert,” he gasped, you don’t think 
that — ” 

Oh, no, I don’t,” said Robert, interrupting him 
and laughing. Fray, James, don’t get up on your 
stilts. Very fortunate is it that you were such a 
numbskull, that an idea of my giving you the 
money never occurred to you ; if it had, you would 
never have confided your wish to me — oh, you have 
a fine idea of what friendship means — but have 
gone olf to New York and hammered away at your 
anvil, to make this sum, fretting and fuming all the 
time lest the gold should be picked up before you 
could get your share. Ah, James, how soon you 
have forgotten, and broken, indeed, in spirit, our 
compact made under Prince Charlie’s tree.” 

“I have not forgotten it, Robert,” said James, 
grasping the other’s hand, but — ” 


DEAD BROKE. 


57 


“ Oh, han^ your huts.” 

‘‘ Robert, I will not take this money from you ; 
you will have to ask your father for it.” 

“Well, that’s not much of an undertaking; come 
up to-night, and we will have his opinion on your 
proposed expedition — mind, the money question is 
settled — should you go, James, months must elapse, 
I suppose, ere we can hear from you.” 

“ You will never hear from me, Robert, unless I 
am successful.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ Don’t think,” James replied, “ that I have been 
so long in your company. Master Robert, without 
being inoculated with some of your romance. I 
shall never return from California, unless as a suc- 
cessful man, and the first news you will have of 
me, will be from myself.” 

“ But, James, think of the anxiety of your friends ; 
will you be treating them generously ?” 

“Yes,” said James, “I have friends, just two, 
yourself and your father; but, Robert, though I 
have no excuse to offer, let me have my little bit of 
romance. Our meeting, for I know I will return, 
will be all the pleasanter for it; and you must 
marry Lucie Evans, so as not to be lonely while I 
am away.” 

It was now Robert’s turn to blush. “I have not 
seen Lucie for six months^” he said ; “ perhaps if you 
were to tell her of your romantic plan of running 
off to California, and leaving no trace by which to 
find you out, she might be so taken with it as to 


58 


DEAD BROKE. 


promise to wait for you until yourself or your ghost 
came back.” 

“ You know, Kobert, I withdrew my pretensions 
long ago, indeed ever since I burned my fingers, 
shoeing her sled, for you and her to ride on. I’m 
not going to burn my fingers any more.” 

Both laughed at those school remembrances; then 
Kobert said, “Well, James, I shall expect you at 
the cottage this evening. You must put that stufi* 
of not writing to us out of your head.” But James 
did not; on this point he had made up his mind 
from the first. Doctor McGregor highly approved 
of his going, and as it was fixed that Robert was to 
accompany him as far as St. Louis, the two left for 
that city in time for J ames to get his outfit, and make 
all necessary preparations to be ready to start with 
the expedition leaving on the 1st of the month. 
When it did leave, Robert, on horseback, accom- 
panied the party for the first day’s march, and was 
glad to see that even in that short time the leader 
had recognized James’ energy and smartness, and 
appointed him the following morning to a minor 
command in the motley army of adventurers. 

Removed some distance from the party, James 
and Robert bid each other farewell, and it is no 
shame to their young manhood, to confess they 
cried in each other’s arms ; then Robert placed a rich 
gold chain, with a watch attached, around Jim’s 
neck. “It is a present from my father, James,” 
he said. 

“I must hide it underneath my vest, Robert, 


DEAD BROKE. 


59 


or they will say that I am a big-bug already,” re- 
plied James, as his hand shook with the agitation 
he was endeavoring to command. 

‘^My father told you, James, to dispose of it if 
you found it necessary ; it is handier to carry than 
money. They are calling you. Oh, James, promise 
to write.” 

“I promise, Robert, to return,” replied James 
Allen, wringing his friend’s hand ; and so they part- 
ed. How many years were to elapse before they 
met again, and then under what different circum- 
stances. 

One of the greatest blessings of youth is hope, 
a buoyant, brave hope, that can turn to the future 
with laughing eyes, and see not a shadow. Charles 
Lamb, I think it is, who says, that a man never re- 
alizes “ that he himself is mortal, until he is past 
thirty years of age.” Neither do we realize in 
youth that our hopes are mortal. Those that come 
to us in after life may have a more rational basis to 
rest on, but they are but lean ghosts compared to 
the lusty hopes of youth. 

Robert McGregor returned from St. Louis in high 
good humor with his trip there, having not a doubt 
but that he would hear of or see James Allen with- 
in a year. 

a w^hy,” he said, “ fellows had made fortunes in 
California in two weeks, and he’d back Jim against 
the smartest of them.” And so, buoyed up with 
hope and youth’s golden dreams, he returned to his 
home. Mayhap, some thought of pretty Lucie 


60 


DEAD BROKE. 


Evans — that the words of James Allen had given 
the cue to — mixed up in his day-dreams, making 
those dreams still the sweeter. 

On Robert’s arrival home, his father proposed 
that they should spend the summer and fall in 
traveling. “ I wish you to see some of the world, 
Robert,” he said, “ and to have the pleasure of show- 
ing it to you myself ; not but that a younger com- 
panion would be more suitable.” So to travel they 
went, avoiding New York, for special reasons con- 
nected with Mr. Wm. McGregor, the doctor’s quilp 
ish brother; although, as Doctor McGregor re- 
marked, “ it was playing Hamlet, with the charac- 
ter of Hamlet left out.” And all this time, at home 
or abroad, with the days, weeks and months pass- 
ing pleasantly and tranquilly, there was no word 
spoken about Robert’s choosing a profession or a 
business. 

It was near Christmas when they returned to 
their home, and both received invitations to attend 
the examination in the public school, previous to 
the holidays. Robert attended, perhaps from a gen- 
eral interest in education, perhaps from a special 
interest in a certain little school teacher, with wavy 
hair — all her own, dear ladies — and blue eyes ; at 
all events, towards the close of the day, he found 
himself chatting with Lucie Evans. 

She had been a little embarrassed when she met 
him first that day, not knowing exactly how to 
address him ; Mr. McGregor would be too formal, 
she thought, and how could she call that tall 


DEAD BROKE. 


61 


young man whom she had not seen “oh, not 
for an age,” Kobert ; so she said neither, but giving 
him her hand in her own frank way — which brought 
back the school-house hill fresh to Eobert’s mind 
— said, “ How do you do ; I am very glad to see 
you;” and now, as she stood there speaking to 
him, she found herself calling him Robert quite 
naturally. 

“ Did you not admire the way the classes answer- 
ed, to-day, Robert?” she asked. 

“No; I was admiring one of the teachers too 
much, to pay any attention to the classes.” 

“One of the teachers. Ah! that must be dear 
old Miss Dott ; she will be quite pleased if you tell 
her so ; but as she is a little deaf, you will have 
to speak somewhat loud.” 

“ Oh, yes, to be sure,” said Robert, “ old Miss 
Dott ; it is of course. Miss Dott ; and I will remind 
her of the pleasant sleigh rides she and I used to 
have down hill.” 

“ Of course you will,” she answered, with an arch 
look ; “ but talking of sleigh rides, Robert, reminds 
me of poor Jim Allen ; so he is gone to California ; 
how did you two ever manage to part ? ” 

“ Oh, Jim had his heart set on going; but he will 
return soon, with lots of money, if any one will. 
He went to wish you good-by, did he not?” 

“ Yes, and spoke of you all the time.” 

“ What did he say? ” 

Just at that moment Lucie recollected something 
that James did say, in reference to herself and Rob^ 
6 


62 


DEAD BROKE. 


ert; her face became suffused with blushes that 
added to her beauty, and saying that she was want- 
ed in another part of the room, she skipped away, 
leaving Robert nearly as much in love as when his 
heart used to thump against Lucie’s back, as they 
rode down hill together, the previous long pull up 
hill, it must be confessed, having more to say to 
this heart action than love. 

About this time Doctor McGregor set about im- 
proving his wild land near the town of P , and 

employed a number of men to chop down the tim- 
ber. In the spring he would clear up the brush 
and open a farm. 

The question of Robert’s future was settled in 
this way. He should be a gentleman farmer ; and 
most acceptable was this solution to both father 
and son. 

Robert, in truth, had no desire to acquire a pro- 
fession, nor taste for commercial pursuits. Like 
his father, he was wanting in ambition ; good and 
honorable, he was willing to live his life in the 
smooth water in which it had commenced, never 
dreaming of the storms and tempests which might 
overtake him. Had he been born a poor man’s son, 
doubtless he would have been a worker, and with 
his intellect and noble disposition, a successful one. 
Had his father required his assistance, how cheer- 
fully he would have labored ; but there was no in- 
centive to awaken his dormant energies, and so 
he settled down to enjoy life tranquilly, active 
only in one duty, which affection made light, to 


DEAD BROKE. 


63 


make his father’s declining years cheerful and 
happy. 

“ I had some thought, at one time, of your be- 
coming a lawyer, Kobert,” said his father to him; 
‘‘ In its higher walks it is a noble profession. To 
protect the weak against the strong, to be the 
champion of innocence, the denouncer of wrong, to 
fearlessly drag the mask from guilt or hypocrisy — 
surely here is a role that may well make us envy 
the position of the gifted advocate ; but the every- 
day pettifogging practice, the cunning tricks, the 
remorseless driving some poor fellow to the wall, 
the acquiescence in the prevarication and down- 
right dishonesty of clients, the quirks and quibbles, 
the rejoicing when others weep, the arming one- 
self against pitiful appeals, until the heart becomes 
so hard as to need no extra protection against the 
voice of sorrow, the narrow groove in which the 
lawyer is compelled to travel, his duty to his clients, 
this everyday practice has a tendency to narrow 
the heart, blunt the conscience, and in a great 
measure destroy those generous promptings, that 
are the voices of angels speaking to the soul.” 

The spring arrived, and no word or letter from 
James Allen. Then Robert heard that the leader 
of James’ party had returned to St. Louis, and was 
organizing another expedition. 

So to St. Louis Robert went, hunted up the man, 
and heard from him about James up to a certain 
point. He had arrived safe, was the most useful 
and obliging man they had on the expedition, and 


64 


DEAD BROKE. 


had set right off for the mines. “ Hope he’ll 
have luck,” concluded the man, “and I’m sure he 
will ; he’s just the fellow to cut out his own luck.” 
With this scrap of news Kobert was fain to con- 
tent himself, and to return home. 

“The fellow will keep to his resolution of not 
writing, I fear,” thought Robert ; “ well, perhaps 
that will make him return all the sooner.” 

This summer was a busy one for Robert ; opening 
a farm was new work for him, and his father left 
it all in his hands; he frequently returned to 
the cottage in the evening, with face, hands, and 
clothes begrimed with the smoke of the burning 
brush he had been waging war on all day. On 
such occasions the doctor would very likely meet 
him with a smile, and tell him to hurry up and 
make himself admissible to the dinner table. After 
the evening meal, the doctor would take a walk 
among his beloved flowers for an hour or so ; then 
returning to the house, the rest of the evening 
would be spent in discussing plans for the new farm, 
which was to be a model one — although it had not, 
as yet, assumed even the outlines of a farm — in 
talking over local news, or reading. A happy sum- 
mer was this to Robert; he enjoyed all the pleasure 
of active employment, without any of its drudg- 
ery; and when he returned to his home each even- 
ing, peace and love met him at the threshold. 
Yet even then, the angel of death was hovering 
near that home, although not the tiniest shadow 
— oh, the blessedness of that veil drawn before 


DEAD BROKE. 


65 


the future — told of the approach of its dark 
wings. 

Early in October, Doctor McGregor came in from 
his garden one morning complaining of headache 
and chill, and within four days, the physician who 
had been called in, pronounced it to be a case of 
typhoid fever. The worst feature was, that from 
the first the patient himself gave up all hope of 
recovery. He knew,” he told the physician, “ that 
this was to be his last illness ; and then, ever mind- 
ful of others, he strove to prepare Robert’s mind 
for the great change.” 

Should I be taken from you, Robert, at this 
time,” he said, I know, my son, how great your 
sorrow will be ; but let it not be that dismal grief 
that shuts out all light from the soul. My boy, we 
have been all and all to one another. How happy 
we have been, Robert, and should this illness prove 
fatal, think of this, and let not your grief amount 
to rebellion against that which is the will of God, 
and was to be expected in the course of nature, 
within a short time.” 

“ Oh, father, you will recover,” said Robert, en- 
deavoring to master his own swelling grief, Doc- 
tor Mitch says that the greatest danger is in your 
allowing those gloomy thoughts to take possession 
of your mind.” 

‘‘Gloomy, my boy? I have thought of death 
every day for the last thirty years; Dr. Mitch 
speaks as a physician and materialist, but not as a 
Christian. He believes that death is the finis of 
6 * 


66 


DEAD BROKE. 


the book; I believe it is but the opening; we only 
read the preface here. Speaking to you thus, Rob- 
ert, calms me rather than depresses me, though I 
could weep at the pain I give my boy ; but you 
know, that doctors have often the best of motives 
for inflicting pain.” Robert could not answer; he 
pressed his father’s hand in silence. 

“Listen to me, my son,” continued the doctor. 
“I know how uncertain and changeful those fevers 
are, and how apt they are to affect the mind. You 
know all about our affairs, and you shall find — in 
case of the worst — all my papers regular.” 

“ Oh, father, father, do not speak of such things.” 

“Well, no,” replied the sick man, “there is no 
occasion. The Reverend Mr. Roache is in the house, 
you say?” 

“ Yes, father.” 

“ Send him to me, and let us not be disturbed. 
Kiss me, my boy. Now go for a little while.” 

As the sick man seemed to have anticipated, his 
mind became affected on the eighth day of the 
fever, and continued so, with short intervals, up to 
his death. He was no longer in Michigan; the 
present and its near past were obliterated, and he 
was once more among the bluebells and heather of 

his native highlands, and his lost wife — his Annie 

and “ little ” Rob’ were by his side. Now in a boat 
on a lake, he saw the tempest coming up ; but as he 
endeavored to take in sail, Annie clung around him 
and pinioned his arms, so that he could not move. 
“ Look, Annie, there is the squall chasing along the 


DEAD BROKE. 


67 


water; oh, let me out! oh God! You and Gittle’ 
Rob’ will be drowned. There, the squall has struck 
the boat; down, down, down! ” A^ain he, Annie, 
and “little” Rob’ were on the table-land, over- 
looking the sea, and suddenly the wind rose and 
snatched the child from his side, bearing him along 
to the giddy cliff ; and when he, the father, thought 
to follow, invisible hands pushed him back. 

“ Oh ! mercy, my child, my child.” 

And now he, Annie, and “little” Rob’ — poor 
sick brain, always Annie and “ little” Rob’ now — 
are walking through a dark, narrow passage in the 
old city of Edinburg, and William McGregor is en- 
deavoring to steal up behind them — dirk in hand — 
to stab the child. 

“ Run, Annie ; run, Rob.” And bending over the 
pillow, with the hot tears almost blinding his vis- 
ion, Robert McGregor would apply cooling lotions 
to his father’s head, until those troubled visions 
would pass away, and reason return to the patient’s 
eyes. Then Robert would be rewarded by a pres- 
sure of the hand, and the old smile of affection he 
was so familiar with. 

But toward the close of Doctor McGregor’s ill- 
ness, although his mind still wandered, his delu- 
sions were no longer of the horrible, and they that 
watched knew by the low murmuring of endear- 
ing words, and fitful smiles hovering on the trem- 
bling lips, that the phantoms which visited the dying 
man were loving and gentle, like the life that was 
passing away. 


68 


DEAD BROKE. 


It was evening. The sun dipping behind the 
forest, painted in innumerable colors the variegat- 
ed autumn foliage ; through the open window came 
the pure air, scarcely stirring the white curtains of 
the window. Outside, hopping along the gravel 
walks of the garden, the robins gave forth their 
short musical notes ; inside, the old fashioned clock 
on the stair landing ticked-ticked the progress of 
time. 

Doctor McGregor reclined in his son’s arms. 
All that afternoon he had been sinking fast; now, 
gradually, his eyes opened wide, a look of ineflfable 
love came to them. 

“ Kiss me, my boy,” he whispered ; and even as 
his son pressed his lips, the spirit of a just man, of 
a man who loved his fellow man, went up to God. 


PAKT V. 

There is no period when inanimate nature has 
more direct influence upon us than when the young 
spirit is gradually emerging from the darkness of a 
first great sorrow into the light of returning hap- 
piness. 

It is the providence of God that the sorrow of the 
young shall not be lasting. Eight months before, 
Robert McGregor had left his home, to wander, he 
cared not whither, his heart surcharged with sor- 


DEAD BROKE. 


69 


row, and deeming that a shadow had fallen upon 
his life that never would pass away ; and now, on a 
beautiful morning in the beautiful month of June, 
he found himself standing at the study window of 

his old home in P , and despite the sadness he 

would call back, by looking at the mementos of his 
father scattered around — drinking in, with every 
emotion of the mind, with every pulse of the heart, 
with every thrill of his nerves, a tranquil happiness 
that came to him through the subtile agencies of 
light and air, flowers and perfume, tree and shrub, 
bird and song. 

The garden, well cared for in his absence, was in 
a glow of beauty, and as he looked, the side gate 
opened and a young girl entered. She wore a spot- 
less white muslin dress, a blue ribbon encircled her 
waist, and a rustic gipsy hat — from beneath which 
a cluster of brown curls fell over her neck — shaded 
her face. She moved deftly among the flowers, 
plucking one here and there, and commenced form- 
ing them into a bouquet, that she raised from time 
to time to her face, to inhale its sweet odor. Not 
knowing that she was observed, there was a grace- 
ful abandon in her movements, that well became 
her young innocent face, and in such perfect har- 
mony with the scene was her presence there — that 
a new beauty seemed added to flower, shrub, and 
sunlight. 

For a minute or two Eobert McGregor remained 
looking at her, then going out the front door, he 
walked round to the side where she was still busy 


70 


DEAD BROKE. 


making up her bouquet. Hearing a step on the 
gravel walk behind her, she carelessly looked over 
her shoulder, but the moment she recognized who 
it was that approached, she turned round with such 
a frightened start, while all color fled from her face, 
that Robert saw he had by his sudden appearance, 
seriously alarmed her. He hurried forward to take 
her hand, for she seemed, indeed, as if she wanted 
support. 

“ Why, Lucie,” he said, pressing the little hand, 
‘‘ do you think it is my ghost you see ?” 

Oh, no,” she answered, “ and I am very glad to 
see you ; but I did not know you had returned. 
When did you arrive ?” 

“ Last night. I was looking out of the window 
when you came into the garden, and I was so glad 
to see you, and so anxious to shake hands with you, 
that I suppose I rushed out of the house as if I was 
going to apprehend a burglar, and so frightened 
you ; but the little Lucie Evans, that was my play- 
mate long ago, used not to be so easily scared.” 

By this time the blood had returned to Lucie’s 
face, with a reinforcement of rosy blushes, and she 
hastened to explain to Robert how his housekeeper, 
Mrs. Cass, had invited her to cull a bouquet from 
the garden whenever she pleased, on her way to 
her school. “ She saw me,” said Lucie, “ one morn- 
ing, about a week ago, looking in, I suppose, most 
wishfully upon the flowers, and gave me the invita- 
tion. But it is so awkward that you should find 
me here.’' 


DEAD BROKE. 


71 


“ Oh, it is dreadful,” replied Robert, smiling. “ I 
wonder where I could find a constable. Don’t be 
trying to destroy the evidence of your guilt, Lucie.” 

Poor Lucie was nervously pulling her fresh bou- 
quet to pieces. 

“ You are teaching school still, Lucie?” 

‘‘ Yes, and my aunt and all the family have emi- 
grated to Iowa, and I am boarding at Mrs. Sims’, 
and that is the way I come to pass by the cottage 
every morning on my way to the school-house.” 

“ I hope my return, Lucie, will not prevent you 
from gathering your morning bouquet.” 

“ Indeed it will, Mr. McGregor ; nevertheless, I 
am very glad to see you home again.” 

“ Mr. McGregor,” repeated Robert. 

Well, no, Robert,” she answered, putting out her 
hand frankly, “ and now, good-morning ; I shall be 
late in the school-room.” 

“I shall walk to the school-house with you, 
Lucie,” said Robert. “I cannot part with you so 
soon ; I want to ask so many questions.” 

“ Tell me,” he continued, as they left the garden 
together, “ has there been any thing heard of James 
Allen?” 

“ I was going to ask you the same question, 
Robert. If any one was to hear from him, surely 
it would be you.” 

“ So I might expect, but he has not written a line 
to me, and from a silly resolution he made, perhaps 
will not. But I was in hopes that, indirectly, some 
information about him might have reached P .” 


72 


DEAD BROKE. 


“Not a word that I have heard,” answered 
Lucie. 

“ Did he know of my poor father’s death, J ames, I 
am sure, would give up his foolish whim, and write 
or come to me.” 

Lucie looked into the face that had become in 
a moment thoughtful and sad. 

“ Robert,” she said, in a subdued voice, “I felt so 
sorry for you when you lost your father.” 

“ I know you did, my good little Lucie,” he an- 
swered. “ I did not know fully what a good man he 
was, until I lost him. I knew, indeed, how kind 
and loving he was to myself, but, Lucie, after his 
death a crowd of people, the poor settlers around, 
came to me, each telling what the doctor had done 
for him. It seems they were all under a promise 
never to divulge any of his acts of benevolence 
during his lifetime; but absolved by his death 
from their promises, they told their various stories : 
how he had helped one to buy a farm, another to 
pay off a mortgage. There were a number of fam- 
ilies he was in the habit of giving warm clothing to 
coming on winter, and so on. His benevolence 
knew no bounds, Lucie; lam proud of having had 
such a father.” 

By this time they had reached the school-house 
entrance, and both paused; Lucie’s face had be- 
come sad from sympathy, as she listened to Robert, 
speaking of his father, and as the young man 
looked upon it now, he felt love’s passion kindling 
in his heart, even more rapidly than when a little 


DEAD BROKE. 


78 


while before in the garden, he admired it in its 
fresh, smiling beauty. 

“ Well, Lucie,” said he, as they parted, if I am 
not to expect you will steal any more flowers, you 
cannot prevent me from presenting you with some.” 

She gave him a friendly nod of acquiescence, and 
tripping up the broad steps of the school-house, 
passed in, while Robert returned to the cottage as 
much in love as it is necessary for a young gentle- 
man of one or two-and-twenty to be. 

While Robert McGregor and Lucie were speak- 
ing in the garden, there were four pairs of eyes 
intently watching them from the large brick house 
on the opposite side of the way. This house be- 
longed to a Mr. Flitters, and the four pairs of eyes 
were those of Mrs. Flitters and the three Misses 
Flitters. 

This family had come to P after the death of 

Doctor McGregor, and while Robert was away, 
Mrs. Flitters, by sundry conversations with Mrs. 
Cass, the housekeeper, had made herself familiar 
with a good many details of the McGregor family, 
some of which were vastly interesting to a lady 
with three marriageable daughters. For instance. 
Doctor McGregor had left his son quite well off. The 
young man was of prepossessing appearance, “ and 
quite green, I should judge,” remarked Mrs. Flitters, 
as she retailed the information she had gathered, to 
her husband. 

This gentleman may be regarded as the founder 
of the Flitters family, as none of its members were 
7 


74 


DEAD BROKE. 


known to the fashionable circles of the Bowery, in 
New York, until his time. He was one of those 
brainless little men that are always fortunate in 
money matters, without either themselves or any- 
body else being able to tell why. He had set him- 
self down on a high stool behind the counter of a 
small grocery store, in the Bowery, New York, 
and money came to him, and stuck to him like bar- 
nacles to a rock. Even a spendthrift wife, with a 
Koman nose and a lofty ambition, characteristic of 
such a magnificent organ, could not destroy his 
prosperity ; she was a heavy drain upon the till, 
but the money came in faster then she could take 
it out, and every year it increased. 

Shrewd, intelligent men, making commercial 
pursuits a science, went into the market every day 
to buy, and were frequently ruined. But when, 
without any calculation or forethought. Flitters 
bought a large quantity of sugar, lard, butter, or 
anything else in his line of business, the article he 
purchased was sure to run up forthwith to a high 
figure. In his dealings he was strictly honest, and 
saving in expenses, unless where Mrs. Flitters was 
concerned. 

There was a strong conviction in his befogged 
little mind, introduced there, perhaps, by the Koman 
nose, that Mrs. Flitters was a superior being, re- 
quiring a good many extras, which it was his duty 
to supply, and which she was very likely to take any- 
how, and as he was, in his mild, undemonstrative 
way, proud of his wife, and there was really nothing 


DEAD BROKE. 


75 


mean or sordid in his nature, he let her have her 
own way in every thing, and was as happy as it 
was possible for a simple, timid little man to be, 
who was the owner of such a high-blooded animal 
as Mrs. Flitters. Consequently, when Mrs. Flitters 
proposed that they should sell out in New York, in 
order to get rid of the “ Bowery trash,” as she ex- 
pressed it, and move out West, where their money 
would get them into society, and where' the girls 
would get first-class husbands,” Richard Flitters 
made no objection. He sold out his business 
stock to great advantage — the man who stepped 
into his shoes becoming a bankrupt in a very 
short time afterward — came on with his family 
to P 5 bought the brick house opposite In- 

verness Cottage, for a dwelling, opened a large 

grocery and provision store in P , and the same 

good luck that attended him heretofore, continued 
with him. Within three months after he had open- 
ed his store, he was doing the largest business of 
any trader in town. 

Mr. Flitters was a smooth, polished little man on 
the outside. He had sleek, black hair, cut close, 
and coming straight down on the upper part of his 
forehead. On the top of his head was a polished, 
bald spot. His face was round, shining, and without 
a wrinkle. He had rosy cheeks, and mild, pleading 
brown eyes. Never was there another grocery and 
provision dealer with such an innocent face, and 
mercantile bummers, on entering his well stocked 
store for the first time, were apt to mistake him for 


76 


DEAD BROKE. 


a junior clerk, and ask to see Mr. Flitters. Then 
Mr. Flitters’ hand would seek the bald spot on the 
top of his head, pass from thence gently down his 
face, and the brown eyes emerging from the palm 
of his hand, would seemingly appeal in the gentlest 
manner, possible, for mercy, while Mr. Flitters 
would mildly answer, “That’s my name, sir; what 
is your pleasure ?” His family, when he arrived in 
P , consisted of his wife, three grown up daugh- 

ters, and a little son of about six years of age. In 
personal appearance Mrs. Flitters might be said 
literally to stand out in strong contrast to her hus- 
band ; but that I cannot forget I am attempting to 
portray the personal appearance of an estimable 
lady, I would say bluntly that Mrs. Flitters was 
built for strength. Mr. Flitters was heard to say in 
confidence to friends, that Mrs. Flitters was an able 
woman, but whether he meant mentally or physic- 
ally, was never known. She was tall and robust, 
with a stern, but by no means homely face. Her 
eyes were grey, and her large Koman nose made 
them appear somewhat too small ; she used to say 
that this style of nose was hereditary in her family ; 
though who her grandfather was, was as great a 
mystery to the good lady as the pyramids of Egypt. 
The female portion of the Flitters family brought 
to their new home the polish of the Bowery, with 
the assumption of Fifth Avenue, and thus armed, 
landed in the West, like Caesar in Gaul, prepared 
to conquer. 

Before going west, Mrs. Flitters had been deluded 


DEAD BROKE. 


77 


by a Bowery legend, to the effect that young Eng- 
lish noblemen, tired of the pomps and restraints of 
a court, frequently came to this country in disguise, 
and sought adventure and freedom in our Western 
States and Territories, and there was more than 
one instance in the annals of Bowery romance, 
where one of those noble scions of the English 
aristocracy, had in his assumed humble character 
of an American citizen, wooed and won a fair 
Western maiden, and returning with her to Eng- 
land, knocked her all of a heap — in Bowery par- 
lance — by leading her through a long line of gor- 
geous liveried menials in plush breeches, up to his 
baronial castle, where he welcomed her as its 
mistress; while his lady mother, the aged duchess, 
with a jeweled turban on her venerable head, im- 
printed a maternal kiss upon her plebeian cheek. 

Since her arrival in the West, Mrs. Flitters had 
seen no evidence of the presence of the English 
nobleman, but she was greatly interested in the de- 
tails she heard from Mrs. Oass, of the McGregor 
family. 

The young man was expected home soon. It 
was not likely he would go into society while he 
was away, and he would, no doubt, be still in bad 
spirits on his return home, predisposed, in fact, to 
fall in love ; melancholy people were always the 
most likely to fall in love ; Lord Byron was always 
melancholy, and always falling in love. They 
should certainly make this young man’s acquaint- 
ance the moment he returned, and bestow upon 
7 * 


78 


DEAD BROKE. 


him all their sympathy. So reasoned and thought 
Mrs. Flitters. 

And here was the young man returned home 
without their knowing a word about it, receiving 
sympathy from somebody else, and it seemingly 
doing him good, too. 

Mrs. Flitters and her daughters had not the 
slightest doubt but that the person dressed in 
black, and speaking to Lucie Evans, was Kobert 
McGregor, and they would have continued to watch 
every movement and gesture of the two, who were 
quite unconscious of the four pairs of eyes gazing 
at them — but that a sudden scream from the heir 
of the house of Flitters, who had tumbled off the 
high chair he had climbed up, in order to add an- 
other pair of eyes to the Flitters group — diverted 
their attention. 

While Mrs. Flitters was endeavoring to repair her 
shattered idol, who continued to scream and kick 
violently, Robert and Lucie had passed out of the 
garden, down the street, and in a little while the 
former was seen returning alone to the cottage. 
More than once he was seen in the garden, during 
the day, and from inquiries, judiciously made, there 
was no longer any doubt of his identity. 

On his return, in the evening, Mr. Flitters was 
made acquainted with the interesting fact of Rob- 
ert’s return home, and it was settled in family 
council that Mr. Flitters, before going down town 
to his business, the next day, should call on the 
young gentleman at the cottage. 


DEAD BROKE. 


79 


‘•‘You can go over about ten o’clock,” said Mrs. 
Flitters, “ and apologize for calling so early, by 
stating your having to go to business.” 

“ Early,” repeated Mr. Flitters, who was in the 
habit of getting up about five, and thought ten 
rather far advanced in the day. 

“ Early for visitors. Flitters,” remarked the able 
woman, reprovingly. ‘‘ Perhaps you had better give 
him an invitation to take tea with us after to-mor- 
row. Ask him just in an off-handed way, not to 
stand on ceremony we are such near neighbors. 
And say, of course he will only meet the family ; 
‘All in the family way, you know.’ You will of 
course bring your card with you, and present it to 
Mr. McGregor.” 

‘‘ Yes, my dear,” said her husband, driving his 
hand into his side pocket, and producing a large 
business card, from which he commenced reading: 
“ Family groceries, lard, butter, eggs — ” 

“Stop,” exclaimed Mrs. Flitters. Flitters’ hand 
at once sought the bald spot on the top of his head, 
went sliding smoothly along, made the turn down, 
and when the brown eyes appeared again, they 
were quite prepared to say: “May it please the 
court, I acknowledge myself guilty, and throw my- 
self upon the mercy of the court.” 

“Is it possible,” said Mrs. Flitters, “you would 
present that card in paying a visit?” 

“It is the new card, my dear, I got it yesterday; 
the printers do mighty good work here in the West.” 

“ But, Flitters, that is not a visiting card; Polly, 


80 


DEAD BROKE. 


bring me my card-case ; here are the proper cards ; 
you remember I made you get them before you 
left New York.” 

“ Mr. Richard Flitters.” 

“I have been paying all your visits for you since 
we came here, and now you must pay one for 
yourself.” 

“ Very well, my dear ; but I think this other card 
would be more explan — ” 

Flitters !” 

‘‘ Yes, my dear.” 

‘‘ Don’t provoke me.” 

No, my dear;” and the family council broke up. 
Flitters trotting back to his store, in the best of 
good humor, to enter some invoices, as it was de- 
creed that he was to lose one or two business 
hours the next day by his intended visit to his 
neighbor. ” 

‘•I wish Mrs. Flitters,” he thought, as he trotted 
along, ‘‘ had fixed the time for this visit at about 
half past six in the morning, but she knows best.” 

The next morning Robert was out in his garden 
early, and had a bouquet ready to hand Lucie when 
she was passing; but she did not make her appear- 
ance, and he, disappointed, lingered out of doors 
until the hour for Flitters’ visit had arrived. Punc- 
tual to the minute, the little man left his house, 
crossed over the street, and entered the garden. 
Seeing him do so, Robert advanced, while all the 
members of the Flitters family in the house, in- 
tently watched the meeting, Mrs. Flitters having 


DEAD BROKE. 


81 


a tight hold of Master Flitters by the waist, to pre- 
vent a renewal of yesterday’s accident. 

“ Oh, look, Anna Maria,” exclaimed Mrs. Flitters, 
in her excitement giving short jerks to Flitters Jun., 
who, in his turn, commenced striking out frantically 
at his §ister Polly’s head, it being the nearest head 
to him, “ Look, there is your pa standing before 
the young man, with his hat off, like a menial.” 

It was true, in all cases of emergency Flitters 
had to seek inspiration from the bald spot on the 
top of his head, and as he could not get at it 
through the crown of his hat, he had taken the lat- 
ter off. 

Having passed his hand along its usual line of 
travel, he felt much more at his ease, and Robert 
was at once prepossessed by the brown eyes, and 
innocent round face, turned up to his. 

“ I believe I am addressing Mr. McGregor,” said 
the little man. 

Yes, sir,” answered Robert. 

‘‘ My name is Flitters,” continued the little man, 
fumbling in his pocket for the card. “ I have called 
by the direc — ahem — I have called to see you.” 

“ Very kind of you, Mr. Flitters,” said Robert, 
putting out his hand; “how do you do, sir; we are 
near neighbors, I find, Mr. Flitters, and hope we 
shall be good ones. Pray come into the house,” 
and Robert ushered his visitor into the parlor. “ Be 
seated, sir,” he continued; “you are in business 
here, I believe, Mr. Flitters, I think I passed by 
your store yesterday.” 


82 


DEAD BROKE. 


“Yes,” replied Flitters; “family groceries, pro- 
visions, butter, lard ; I deal in live feathers, too.” 

“Indeed,” said Kobert, bowing his head as if 
this was a very interesting piece of information to 
him. 

“ He’s a very nice young man,” thought Mr. Flit- 
ters, “ and not a bit upsettish.” Then he deliver- 
ed his wife’s invitation to Kobert, to take tea with 
them the following evening. “No one but our- 
selves, Mr. McGregor,” he concluded. 

“ I am sure I am very much obliged to you and 
Mrs. Flitters,” said Robert, “ and certainly will do 
myself the pleasure of calling and making the ac- 
quaintance of Mrs. Flitters ; but I think you must 
excuse me for to-morrow evening.” 

With a rapid gesture Mr. Flitters went behind 
his hand, and when the brown eyes were again 
visible, they were filled with sorrow and apprehen- 
sion. 

“ Mrs. Flitters will be greatly disappointed,” he 
said. 

“ Oh ! as you are so kind as to say so,” said Rob- 
ert, “ why, I will not disappoint her, I will go over. 
At what hour did you say ?” 

“ Half-past six,” answered his visitor, rising brisk- 
ly, and bidding Robert a cheerful good-morning, 
he hurried to his house to be delayed a quarter of 
an hour longer from business, in detailing to Mrs. 
Flitters the result of his visit, and answering some 
leading questions which suggested themselves to 
the mind of that very able woman. 


DEAD BROKE. 


83 


When Robert McGregor rang the bell, the follow- 
ing day, at Mrs. Flitters’, the door was opened by a 
servant-maid^who showed him into the sitting-room, 
telling him at the same time, that Mr. Flitters had 
not as yet returned from the store, but she would 
inform Mrs. Flitters of his, Robert’s, arrival. 

In the middle of the room was Master Flitters, 
endeavoring to build a house with blocks. The 
moment the door was shut, he stopped his work, 
and looking at Robert, said, “ I know who you are.” 

“ Intelligent boy,” said Robert, who was too 
young to be an admirer of precocious babyhood. 
‘‘ Well, who am I, Solomon?” 

‘G aint Solomon, but I know who you are.” 

“ Well, who ?” 

“ You’re the man that lives in the cottage, and 
you’re going to marry Folly.” 

Robert was still laughing at the answery when 
the door opened, and there sailed into the room, like 
a proud frigate with three full rigged schooners in 
her wake, Mrs. Flitters and the Misses Flitters. 

With a dignified air the lady of the house ad- 
vanced and extended her hand to Robert, as she 
said, “ Mr. McGregor, I am very happy to make 
your acquaintance, very kind of you to come to us 
without any ceremony; Mr. Flitters will be here 
immediately. My daughters, Mr. McGregor, Anna 
Maria, Louisa Jane, and Polly.” 

‘‘ My intended,” thought Robert, as he bowed to 
the young ladies ; “ well, she is the prettiest of the 
lot.” 


84 


DEAD BROKE. 


Presently Mr. Flitters came home, and shortly 
afterwards they all adjourned to supper, where Mrs. 
Flitters presided with great dignity^ engrossing 
much of the conversation, while the young ladies 
smiled and exchanged glances, and Flitters strictly 
attended to what brought him to table. 

“You take sugar, Mr. McGregor?” asked the 
hostess. 

“Sugar is rising,” said Mr. Flitters, looking up 
from his plate. 

Mrs. Flitters turned one look upon him; he laid 
his fork down, the brown eyes became filled with 
an expressive plea for mercy, and then, seemingly 
with fresh appetite, Mr. Flitters renewed his attack 
upon the viands before him. 

“And how do you like the West, Mrs. Flitters?” 
asked Robert. 

“ Oh, pretty well, Mr. McGregor ; it would not do 
to tell you, a Western gentleman, anything else; 
but we miss the society of Fifth Avenue, Mr. Mc- 
Gregor, don’t we, Anna Maria ?” 

“ I should think so, ma,” replied the young lady 
appealed to. 

“ I miss the Bowery, Mr. McGregor, I can tell 
you,” said Mr. Flitters, quite sincerely. Mrs. Flit- 
ters gave him a glance, but her husband was at 
that moment particularly engaged with a piece of 
beefsteak on his plate, and did not notice it, so the 
lady said in explanation : 

“ Mr. Flitters kept a store in the Bowery, at one 
time, Mr. McGregor.” 


DEAD BROKE. 


85 


“Yes, and a mighty small store at one time; ha, 
ha, ha,” said Flitters, jocosely. 

There are some people that eating, like the mod- 
erate use of wine, exhilarates. Flitters was a full 
blooded, healthy little man, with a fine appetite 
and healthy digestion, and the succulent beefsteak 
he was eating, warmed him up, made him feel good, 
and careless of consequences; but no sooner had 
that reckless laugh passed his lips, than a premoni- 
tory cough brought him sitting straight up in his 
chair ; Mrs. Flitters’ grey eyes were fixed upon him. 
Mrs. Flitters’ Roman nose pointed at him. The 
beefsteak intoxication passed away, his hand sought 
the inspiring bald spot, then slowly passed down 
his face, and the brown eyes resignedly put in the 
plea of guilty on every count, immediately after 
which. Flitters commenced briskly to help himself 
and Flitters Jun., to large slices of pound cake. 

By the time supper was over. Flitters Jun. had 
fallen into a profound sleep, and was thus disposed 
of for the rest of the evening, and Robert and the 
young ladies retired to the drawingroom, where 
the two oldest Misses Flitters sang and played duets 
on the piano — Mrs. Flitters having whispered to 
Robert to insist on their doing so — while Polly, her 
long black curls now and then brushing his hand, 
showed him her album — a cunning artifice by 
which she was enabled to take advantage of her 
sisters behind their backs, “just like Polly,” said 
Louisa Jane, afterwards. Altogether, Robert spent 
a very pleasant evening. He had never mixed in 
8 


86 


DEAD BROKE. 


what is called society. Yet, accustomed to the 
quiet refinement of his own home, and to the ease 
of manner of an educated gentleman, like his 
father, he was not for a moment deceived by the 
over done fashionable airs of Mrs. Flitters; but 
neither was he inclined to be a very severe critic, 
for he was flattered by the attention he received, 
and consequently disposed to be pleased. 

When he rose to leave, Mr. Flitters, emerging 
from a corner where he had been enjoying a com- 
fortable nap, proposed to walk across to the cottage 
with him. When they reached the gate, Robert 
opened it and asked Mr. Flitters to enter, but he 
would not, so the two stopped a few minutes lean- 
ing on the fence and chatting. Just as Flitters 
was about returning, he looked over at his house, 
and seeing the door shut, and judging that Mrs. 
Flitters was safely on the other side out of hearing, 
he pulled his business card out of his pocket, and 
presenting it to Robert, said, “ Drop into the store, 
Mr. McGregor, and if you want anything in our line, 
we will be happy to supply you. Family groceries, 
provisions, lard, butter, soap, rope. Good-night, 
good-night.” 

There is no positive record of Robert McGregor 
dreaming of Polly Flitters that night, but it is cer- 
tain that it was Lucie Evans, his old schoolmate, 
he was thinking of when he awoke the next morn- 
ing. He had not seen her now for two days. The 
flowers he had gathered for her were lying on his 
dressing table faded, and Robert fixing his eyes 


DEAD BROKE. 


87 


upon them, endeavored to get himself into a poetic 
melancholy, by repeating, “ Faded flowers, faded 
hope.” But whether it was that he could not find 
a line to correspond with this one, or that in trying 
to get a word to rhyme with hope. Flitters’ enu- 
meration of family groceries, soap, rope, &c., the 
night before occurred to him, or that his youthful 
spirit, overflowing with animal life, would not be 
tamed down — whatever the cause, he suddenly 
broke forth into a merry laugh, and tossing the 
bedclothes aside, jumped up and commenced to 
dress. 

“It was very ridiculous of me,” thought Robert, 
as he hurriedly dressed, “ to suppose that Lucie 
would be coming round here to receive bouquets 
from my hand ; the little gipsy must have taken 
the lower street on her way to her school. It is cer- 
tainly my business to call to see her; I will be just 
in time to pull a few flowers, meet her before she 
leaves Mrs. Sims, and have a walk with her to the 
school-house. She is the only one I can have any 
pleasure in talking over the happy past with, the 
only one left that had any share in that past. 
What a queer matched pair Mr. Flitters and his 
wife are. I like the little man, but he is terribly 
hectored, and the two oldest girls are the image of 
their mother. Certainly I am very much obliged 
to that interesting child — who has such a capacity 
for pound cake — for selecting Polly for me. Will 
there be anything strange in my calling on Lucie 
so early ? Oh, no, we are old schoolmates. I sup- 


88 


DEAD BROKE. 


pose she has lots of admirers. Of course she has, 
for she is downright beautiful.” 

Robert was just in time to meet Lucie as she 
was leaving the house, and the blush and smile 
with which she greeted him, well repaid him for 
his short walk. 

I have brought you the flowers, Lucie, that you 
would not come for,” he said. 

‘‘I am very much obliged to you,” she answered, 
taking them from his hand, “oh, how beautiful! 
why, Robert, you have shown excellent taste in 
your selection,” 

“ Well, you know, Lucie, I have always dis- 
played good taste, even at school.” The emphasis 
with which this was said, and the look which ac- 
companied it, brought another bright blush to the 
girl’s face. And so, happy in the sunshine of the 
young day, and the sunshine of their young lives, 
shining through the glamour of first love, they 
chatted and walked, side by side, until they reached 
the school-house, where they parted as on the for- 
mer occasion. 

For the next two weeks or so, Robert usually met 
Lucie in the morning, and walked with her to the 
school-house ; and when vacation came, they had 
many a stroll together to places in the neighbor- 
hood that were favorite resorts of Robert and James 
Allen in their boyhood years. 

On these occasions, Robert McGregor spoke fre- 
quently of his father and James Allen, and indeed, 
the young lovers — for lovers they surely were — 


DEAD BROKE. 


89 


# 


seemed, in their words and thoughts, to be busy 
with the past rather than the present or future. 

This state of feeling in lovers may be termed the 
luxury of melancholy — the Indian summer .of love, 
with its soft, warm, hazy atmosphere, through 
which a gentle happiness pulsates, and like the In- 
dian summer of our northern clime, it is ever too 
beautiful and calm to last long. In position, these 
two young people were singularly independent of 
Mrs. Grundy. They had no one’s wishes to consult, 
no particular or exclusive set to please or vex, and 
in means, Kobert was equally independent. In his 
daily intercourse with Lucie at this time, he never 
broke out into passionate words of love, nor had he 
asked her to be his wife. Respect for his father’s 
memory kept his lips sealed for the present, but he 
felt in his heart how truly he loved her, was con- 
scious that his love was returned, and looked for- 
ward without doubt to the time when he should 
call her his wife. Under the guise of the best of 
friends, they were the best of lovers. 

I have said that Robert McGregor and Lucie 
Evans were singularly independent of Mrs. Grundy, 
a fact that was very aggravating to the old lady, so 
she set about doing them as much harm as she 
could. They were not so far beyond her reach but 
that she could make them feel uncomfortable and 
unhappy for the time being. What mortal is? 

Mrs. Flitters was the primary mover on the part 
of society. From the time of making Robert Mc- 
Gregor’s acquaintance she had been unremitting 
8 ^ 


90 


DEAD BROKE. 


in what she termed, ‘‘ delicate attention,’' and as 
Kobert really liked Mr. Flitters, he frequently called 
on the latter after business hours, to have a friendly 
chat or to bring him over to the cottage, where 
Flitters would surreptitiously enjoy a mild cigar, 
and then by rinsing his mouth with water, eating 
cloves, and taking other precautionary measures, 
endeavor to destroy all evidence of his dissipation 
before returning to the family domicile. 

Mrs. Flitters perceived from the first that of the 
girls, Kobert evidently preferred Polly, and though, 
as a match-making mother, she would have wished 
to hand out her daughters in regular rotation, be- 
ginning with Anna Maria, to expectant young men 
with good prospects, still she made up her mind to 
submit without a murmur to circumstances, and to 
bestow Polly on Robert McGregor. Nor were there 
any objections to be apprehended on the part of 
Polly to this arrangement; consequently, when 
Robert called, she was left alone with him as much 
as possible. As possible, I say, for the stupidity of 
Flitters did much to counteract the strategistic 
movements of that able woman, Mrs. Flitters; he 
was continually appearing at the wrong time. His 
habit of going off with Robert to spend the even- 
ing at the cottage, showed a callous disregard to 
the interests of his family, which was most dis- 
heartening. On such occasions, Mrs. Flitters would 
remark to her daughters, Of course, my dears, the 
young man would have spent the evening here had 
not your father dragged him off.” 


DEAD BROKE. 


91 


The abject repentant of Flitters, when reproved 
for his conduct, and his lively promptness to com- 
mit the same olfence at the first opportunity, were 
evidences going to show that a permanent change 
of heart was not to be expected from him; but de- 
spite Flitters playing the part of a Marplot, Polly 
and Robert had plenty of opportunity to become 
intimate friends ; how pretty she used to look, when, 
at the suggestion of the parent bird, she fluttered 
across the street, and perching on the first rail of 
the board fence, begged of Robert, in the garden, 
“just a few of those beautiful flowers.” Those 
little, flying visits, made at first at the suggestion 
of her mother, were continued by Polly from in- 
clination, until the poor girl had almost given away 
her heart before she discovered that she had no re- 
turn. And love, that blinds to all else, made her 
vision clear in this. The moment she began to 
love, she saw that Robert did not. He flirted with 
her, romped with her, played with her, but he did 
not love her. His very familiarity and self-posses- 
sion in her presence, his pleasant, indifferent man- 
ner at their parting or meeting, showed that he 
regarded her as a pleasing acquaintance, one whom 
he would likely come to esteem as a friend, but 
only as a friend. More than this, scarcely had love 
dawned in her heart, than by intuition she surmised 
that Robert McGregor loved somebody else, and 
this surmise she confided — not without a few little 
sobs heroically kept under restraint — to her mother. 

Poor Polly ! 


92 


DEAD BROKE. 


This information started Mrs. Flitters on a tour of 
discovery. Remembering the first morning she 
saw Robert in his garden speaking to a young lady, 
she started from that point, and had no difficulty in 
finding out who Lucie was, and the great intimacy 
that existed between herself and Robert. Indeed, 
when she went seeking information on these points, 
such a flood of light poured in from all the news- 
mongers’ lanterns, that the only wonder was, she 
had not heard all about Lucie and Robert long be- 
fore. 

^‘They were seen frequently walking together in 
all outlandish places, since school closed, and before 
that he walked with her to the school-house every 
morning since his return home.” 

“Oh, such goings on, Mrs. Flitters,” concluded 
another gossip, “ I hope all will end well, but that 
Lucie Evans was always a bold, forward thing.” 

Number three gossip, “Knew very well that if 
Doctor McGregor was alive, he would not allow his 
son to be keej^ing company with the niece of a 
woman that took in washing when she lived in 

F .” And number four gossip, “ Hoped at one 

time, my dear Mrs. Flitters, that Robert McGregor’s 
becoming intimate with your respectable family, 
might lead to a match betwen him and one of your 
sweet girls. It would be such a suitable match in 
every way.” 

Whereupon the Roman nosed matron, taken off 
her guard by the honeyed flattery of these words, re- 
vealed the secret of her maternal bosom, in regard 


DEAD BROKE. 


93 


to Polly and Robert, to number four, and the latter 
rewarded this feminine confidence in a truly femi- 
nine way, by putting on her sun-bonnet the moment 
Mrs. Flitters disappeared round the corner of the 
street, and hastening to Lucie Evans with an em- 
bellished and exhaustive report of what “ she said ” 
and ‘‘she said,” until it appeared to poor Lucie 
that all the female tongues in P were sud- 

denly let loose, and in full cry after a little orphan 
girl, that had never as much as hurt a fly inten- 
tionally. 

Leaving Lucie in a satisfactory state of unhappi- 
ness, number four returned to the bosom of her 
family, with a complacent consciousness of having 
done her duty, and the next Sunday Mrs. Grundy 
went to church and sang the Doxology. 

The same day that Lucie had heard of the great 
interest that Mrs. Flitters and other good ladies in 

P were taking in her welfare, Robert called to 

bring her out to walk, and very soon perceived that 
something was the matter. In meeting him, her 
manner was restrained and confused, and as he 
looked anxiously in her face, he detected signs of 
tears. 

“ Something has distressed you, Lucie,” he said ; 
“ tell me what it is, my little girl.” 

“I think I shall, Robert,” she answered, as the 
tears came swimming into her eyes, and her face 
crimsoned. “ You are my only friend here, and I 
will tell you, although it is hard, and 1 don’t know 
how to do it. You won’t misjudge me ? ” 


94 


DEAD BROKE. 


Will you misjudge me, Lucie, by asking such a 
question ? ” 

“No,” she answered, “ I will not;” and then she 
told him about the inquiries Mrs. Flitters had been 
making among her lady friends, and all the reports 
and insinuations which that able woman had set 
afloat. 

Lucie hurried over the recital, now and then 
catching her breath to prevent a sob, but when she 
came to speak of the happiness that Mrs. Flitters 
had intended for Robert, by becoming his mother- 
in-law, Lucie stole a glance at her lover, and a 
quizzical smile parted the lips that had been quiv- 
ering the moment before. 

And what did Robert say to all this ? Well, 
nothing in words, but with a pleasant, joyous laugh, 

that blew Mrs. Flitters and all the gossips of P 

clear off* into space, he drew Lucie toward him, and 
encircled her in his arms, while she rested her head 
upon his bosom in the ecstasy of first love revealed. 
“And now, Lucie,” said Robert, as he imprinted a 
kiss upon her lips, be off* and get your bonnet, and 
we will pay a visit to Mrs. Flitters, or, if you like it 
better, we will take a walk to Prince Charlie’s 
tree.” 

And beneath the broad-leafed branches of Prince 
Charlie’s tree, on whose trunk the jackknives of 
the boys — Robert McGregor and James Allen — had 
cut Lucie’s name when she was their little play- 
mate at school, the youth and maiden sat, weaving 
in the sunlight of youth their bright woof of love. 


DEAD BROKE. 


95 


happily unconscious in this, the summer of their 
lives, of the winter whose tempests should dim its 
colors and test its strength. 

The delicious prattle of lovers is silly jargon to 
other ears, but it is necessary that I should give a 
portion of Lucie’s and Robert’s conversation, which 
took place during a lucid interval. 

‘‘ Out of respect to the memory of my dear father,” 
said Robert, “ I did not intend, Lucie, to ask you 
to be my wife for some time longer, but our friends 
have made it necessary to hasten our happiness. 
Your idea of paying a visit to your good aunt, who 
wishes you to do so, is excellent. Be sure I will 
soon follow you. I will spend the summer and fall 
in roving over those broad prairies we hear so much 
of, and then, darling, we will begin the new year as 
man and wife.” 

Here followed an insane interval, the incidents 
of which are only known to the squirrels that 
squatted on the overhanging branches and watched 
the happy lovers. 

“And you will not be ashamed to take me from 
so poor a house as my aunt’s, Robert?” asked 
Lucie. 

“No, Lucie, and the busybody spoke false who 
said, as it was reported to you, that if my father 
lived he would not consent to my marrying you. 
My dear father,” continued Robert, with a heighten- 
ed color, “ was a true republican in all his ideas ; he 
honored labor, scorned what was mean in prince or 
peasant alike, and prized worth, honesty and intel- 


96 


DEAD BROKE. 


ligence wherever he found them. And who are 
the Flitters’, do you think, Lucie ? ” 

“ Well, no,” continued Robert, laughing, “ I don’t 
believe that even to you I ought to divulge the 
confidence Flitters reposed in me when he found 
himself beyond the ken of the old eagle; oh! if 
she knew she would swoop down upon the poor little 
man’s shining bald head,” and again Robert laugh- 
ed heartily; “I half suspect, Lucie,” he continued, 
“ that once upon a time, and no distant time either, 
a certain near relative of Mrs. Flitters was in the 
habit of paying business visits to the ash barrels 
in a certain district in the Bowery in New York; 
Oh, it is too ridiculous ; come along, little girl, set 
about packing your trunk when you get home, and 
be off to Iowa, or Bowery Uppertendom will crush 
you under the wheels of its spick-and-span new 
carriage. 

In the commencement of the new year, Robert 
McGregor and Lucie Evans were married in Iowa, 

and after a short bridal trip, returned to P , to 

commence housekeeping at the cottage. At this 
time Robert was worth thirty thousand dollars in 
cash, and about twenty thousand in real estate. 
“ Sufficient for all their wants,” he said to Lucie, 
“ and so they would live happy and tranquil, letting 
others strive after wealth and fame, to find how 
barren and cold the goal was when reached.” 

Lucie kissed her young philosopher, and the idyl 
of their lives ran so smoothly into the prose that 
they were unconscious of the change. 


DEAD BROKE. 


97 


Among their first visitors was the Flitters family. 
Mrs. Flitters was altogether too old a campaigner 
to show any evidence of chagrin at the manner in 
which her matrimonial plans were defeated. So, as 
I have said, she and the Misses Flitters were among 
the first to call and tender their congratulations to 
the young couple. 

If you wanted evidence of Christian forgiveness 
arid love, you should have heard the detonating 
smack with which Mrs. Flitters saluted the bride’s 
cheek. Then Anna Maria and Lousia Jane follow- 
ed suit ; but Folly merely shook hands, and Lucie 
felt better pleased with the warm pressure of her 
soft hand, than with the metallic kisses that might 
as well have been bites. With their hands clasped, 
the bride and Polly stood for a moment looking in- 
to each others eye’s, and from that time forth they 
were friends, and very true and dear friends, as 
time advanced. 


PART VI. 

As time sped on, Robert McGregor was by 

no means as popular in P as his father had 

been ; nor indeed did he deserve to be so. 

Doctor McGregor had been an enterprising, use- 
ful, benevolent citizen ; but with his son, the old 
day-dreaming habits of the boy remained with the 
9 


98 


DEAD BROKE. 


man, and though he fully inherited his father’s 
goodness of heart, he lacked the opportunity which 
the latter’s profession afforded, for active benevo- 
lence. With the exception of improving the farm 
he had opened shortly before his father’s death, he 
embarked in no business, and as yet the expenses 
of this farm exceeded the returns. But this did 
not give him any uneasiness, as his income was 
quite sufficient for his modest way of living. 
Quiet, gentlemanly, sensitive, and reserved, unless 
in his own house, where he was prodigal of his 
smiles and laughter, he was far more popular with 
the poor than the rich, and the former, with whom 
he was much freer, understood him better. 

In Europe, living on his estate, he would have 
been a model gentleman ; living in his Western 
home, on his income, which he neither diminished 
nor increased, he was looked upon, by his neigbors, 
as an idle gentleman, a very unpopular character 
in the West, ranking far beneath a successful 
knave. 

As he had money, the politicians of P made 

advances to him. “He was just the man they 
wanted.” “ They would send him to Congress.” 
But Robert McGregor had no taste for politics, nor 
ambition to go to Congress, so he declined their 
advances, and thereby saved his money and repu- 
tation. The only one redeeming point that the 
public of P saw in the man was, that for pub- 

lic enterprises, town inprovements, and good ob- 
jects, he was always most liberal with his money. 


DEAD BROKE. 


99 


So the busy, active, little world of P settled 

down to let him have his own way, neutral in re- 
gard to him in its like or dislike. If a loving, hap- 
py home is a desirable thing, Robert McGregor’s 
way was not a bad one after all, and if the public 
of P had little difficulty in discovering his im- 

perfections, his wife had still less in finding out his 
perfections. Nor did the charge of idleness lie at 
his door, when he worked under Lucie’s supervis- 
ion in the garden ; but then in pushing work 
through, there is a great deal in a boss, and such a 
boss as Robert had. The love-light in her blue 
eyes, her laugh that set all the birds a singing, 
the clapping of her little hands when a piece of 
work was successfully gone through, were all equal 
to draughts of wine to the laborer, and very often 
during the day did he rest upon his garden spade, 
and look at the boss, and very often during the day 
did the boss refresh him. 

I strongly suspect that a good deal of Robert’s 
unpopularity was caused by the jealousy of those 
fellows who had shrews at home, and envied him 
his happiness. 

The second summer Robert worked in the gar- 
den he had two bosses, “ baby and 1.” But the 
new boss was only a sleeping partner in the con- 
cern, and as his judgment could not be depended 
upon, it was fortunate he never gave it. 

At this period of his life, Robert McGregor en- 
joyed as much happiness as can fall to the lot of 
a human being, and the principal drawback to that 


100 


DEAD BROKE. 


happiness, was his anxiety to hear of, or from 
James Allen. What had become of him ; was he 
dead, or did he altogether forget his early friend ?” 
These were questions that Robert and Lucie fre- 
quently discussed, without being able to arrive at 
any satisfactory conclusion, with the exception that 
they acquitted James of want of friendship. We 
are all apt to judge others by ourselves, and as 
Robert’s friendship for James was as warm now as 
when he bade him farewell, he never doubted but 
that the latter’s sentiments also remained un- 
changed. ‘‘ No ; the poor fellow was dead, or being 
unsuccessful in California, kept his foolish resolve 
of not writing — which was it?” 

Robert often almost resolved to set out for Cali- 
fornia in quest of his friend, but to this, Lucie ob- 
jected, and his own disinclination to leave his 
family for the time such a journey would occupy, 
and the distance it would separate him from them, 
made him not urge the point. Was he unmarried, 
he would assuredly have gone in search of James, 
and finding him, have told him that he, Robert, had 
enough for both. 

Although Robert was prevented from making 
personal search for the friend he never ceased to 
think . of and love, he was unceasing in his in- 
quiries in every quarter where he thought it at all 
likely he might obtain some clue that would lead 
to the information he sought. He had several ad- 
vertisements inserted in the California papers, and 
even when seven years had elapsed since James’ 


DEAD BROKE. 


101 


departure, he still kept up his inquiries. Not, per- 
haps, that he had really much faith in these efforts, 
as that by them he strove not to allow all hope to 
abandon him. 

During the first five years of Robert’s marriage, 
with the exception of the birth of three children, 
respectively named Robert, James, and Mary, no 
incidents occurred to break in upon the tranquil 
life of happiness he had seemingly mapped out for 
himself. He had launched his boat upon a summer 
sea, never giving thought to the storm that might 
arise, and consequently was all unprepared when 
its force actually broke upon him ; the young pas- 
sengers that came on board from time to time, but 
made the voyage the more pleasant. 

The second boy was named after James Allen, 
and the little girl after Polly Flitters, who was her 
godmother. 

Polly was now the only unmarried daughter left 
in the brick house opposite; yes, fate had smiled 
on that able woman, Mrs. Flitters, and robbed her of 
her two oldest daughters, within three years after 

the family had settled in P . They were taken off 

in regular order after all, which fact mollified Mrs. 
Flitters’ feelings towards the inmate of the cottage 
very much. The first to go off was Anna Maria, 
who married a young man who had been clerking 
for Mr. Flitters, and who went further West to set 
up in business for himself. And from accounts, 
the young couple were doing well in their new 
home. But the great event of Mrs. Flitters’ mani- 
oc 


102 


DEAD BROKE. 


monial schemes, was the marriage of her second 
daughter, Lousia J ane, to J. J. J enkins. Esq., a W est- 
ern speculator, and a man worth millions in pros- 
pective. 

Building cities was Jenkins’ specialty. At lei- 
sure moments, just in the lull of the rush of busi- 
ness he was always in, he would pay a little atten- 
tion to corner lots, pick a few (out of his portman- 
teau) nicely marked on highly colored plats, and 
sell them to you “for merely nominal prices;” but 
his regular business was to build a city out of hand. 

He had stepped off the train at P , on his way 

to Lake Superior, where one of his largest cities 
was going up, just to get a tooth filled, and “ thought 
he would look round a little to see if he could not 
make a couple of hundred thousand dollars or so, 
now that he was here.” While looking round he 
got acquainted with the Flitters, and indeed with 
almost all the people of means in the town. 

He was the sensation of P . When he stood 

on the steps of the post-office, with the lappels of 
his coat thrown back, displaying in full, his white 
vest and broad chest, he was sure to have a group 
of admirers around him, and how contemptible 
seemed the small safe business some of them were 
engaged in, compared with those great under- 
takings which Jenkins spoke of so carelessly. His 
dash, display, and great expectations had a bewil- 
dering effect on Flitters, without exactly impressing 
him with any great amount of confidence. 

He supposed it was all right in the regular way 


DEAD BROKE. 


103 


of business, that Jenkins should roll out new cities, 
as he. Flitters, rolled out sugar and molasses bar- 
rels; but as the matter was out of the family gro- 
cery and provision line, he did not pretend to know 
how it was done. 

Mrs. Flitters was completely fascinated with the 
dash and style of Jenkins; she had given up the 
idea of finding the disguised English nobleman out 
West, but Jenkins actually surpassed her ideal, 
and he was “ cap in hand” with all the English 
nobility, having paid flying visits to England, and 
talked of having Lord Tom and Sir Harry out to 
spend a month, fishing with him on Lake Superior, 
in a manner that showed on what intimate terms 
he stood with those distinguished men. And he 
had really promised Lady Blanche — Lord Tom’s 
sister — 'Hhat should he get married one of these 
days, he would bring his wife over to England, on 
a visit to Lady Blanche.” 

Now it must not be supposed that Jenkins was 
a common lying cheat ; he had been in England, 
had met with live lords, had made them believe in 
him and in his great schemes, because he believed 
in them himself. 

About the time I am writing of. Western specula- 
tion was at fever heat. The rapid growth of Chi- 
cago, on Lake Michigan, had set people crazy. 
Wherever there was a sheet of water, or a stream 
that could turn a mill wheel, all that was necessary 
to commence the building of a city there, was as 
much money as would pay for the survey and maps 


104 


DEAD BROKE. 


of the town site; those maps plentifully furnished 
with black lines, representing railroads in prospec- 
tive — everything was in prospective — had only to 
be shown, when numbers rushed forward, either to 
take shares in the new company that had secured 
the site, or to buy lots at ridiculously high prices. 

Was the history of this speculative mania written, 
some of its incidents would surpass the wildest 
romance, and afford materials for tragedy, comedy, 
and farce. While there was an innumerable num- 
ber of knaves that committed the most barefaced 
swindles, there were others who entered upon the 
wildest speculations, fully as duped by their own 
heated imagination as the dupes they brought in 
after them. 

Jenkins belonged more to the latter than the 
former class; he had already sunk some thousands 
— all he was worth — in one of the new — prospect- 
ive — cities on Lake Superior, and his real business 
in Michigan was to settle some of the shares of the 
company. 

He was a man about thirty-five years of age, with 
an open countenance, clear voice, ringing laugh, 
and a singular adaptability of manner and percep- 
tion of character. Had he been born an English 
nobleman, he might have been one of Her Majes- 
ty’s ministers, or a fashionable blackleg ; being an 
American, he came West, and expanded into a 
Western speculator, a character that frequently 
combines and harmonizes traits that are found dis- 
tinct in the two former characters. 


DEAD BROKE. 


105 


Being introduced to the Flitters, Jenkins, as he 
said himself, “ realized the situation at once.” Mrs. 
Flitters, vulgar, ambitious, vain and foolish. Two 
marriageable daughters, some dash about the eld- 
est, more in his style than Polly. Flitters no doubt, 
under the pressure of Mrs. Flitters, would come 
down handsomely, and he was the stamp of a safe 
kind of a father-in-law to fall back upon; one, too, 
that you could leave a wife with for an indefinite 
time, while you were attending to business. Ac- 
cordingly, the friend of Lord Tom, Sir Harry, and 
Lady Blanche, and owner of countless wealth in 
prospective, proposed, and was accepted by Louisa 
Jane, to the triumphant joy of Mrs. Flitters, Flitters 
making no objection. He had with the most va- 
cant stare, looked over several maps that Jenkins 
had set before him, and spent the rest of the even- 
ing violently polishing the bald spot. When the 
morning of the wedding arrived. Flitters presented 
his son-in-law with a check for two thousand dol- 
lars, which the latter stuck carelessly in his vest 
pocket, merely remarking, “ Thank you, father-in- 
law ; it will help to buy the cigars.” 

Flitters retreated, rubbing, if possible, more vio- 
lently than ever, the polished crowm. 

I don’t exactly understand it,” he said; “but I 
suppose Mrs. Flitters does, and I have followed her 
directions. We had quite a settlement drawn up, 
binding Simpson (Anna Maria’s husband,) and I 
don’t believe there is a steadier young man in the 
county. To be sure, he never thought of building 


106 


DEAD BROKE. 


a city, and that’s where the diiFerence is, Mrs. 
Flitters says.” 

After a short bridal tour to Niagara and back, 
Mr. Jenkins left his wife at her father’s, and went 
to see after the new city he was building on the 
shores of Lake Superior. He returned with five 
thousand dollars, his share of the sum realized by 
the company by the sale of a few outstanding lots. 
He reported the most fabulous prices offered and 
refused for lots in the business parts of the new city. 
The speculative fever increased; new companies 
started all over the country ; and heretofore staid, 
sensible men gave their money to build large hotels 
in places where there was not a human being re- 
siding within many miles, or a road chopped out. 
Almost the only one in P who was not sus- 

ceptible to the excitement, or in any way affected 
by it, was Flitters. “ It was aut of his line,” he said. 
Even Kobert McGregor was seized with a desire to 
speculate, just a little. The contrast between him- 
self and the bustling, active, energetic Jenkins, 
whom he frequently met, began to appear to him 
as in favor of the latter. Without in the least be- 
coming tired of his quiet life, with its love and 
peace and simple joys, the example of the restless 
energy of Jenkins affected him now just as Jim 
Allen’s restless spirit used to rouse him out of his 
day-dreams when both were boys. 

However, there were difficulties in the way of 
his speculating. He had firmly resolved that his 
cash capital in bank, and which was drawing six 


DEAD BROKE. 


107 


per cent, interest, should never be interfered with. 
This he had set apart for his wife and children, and 
not the most tempting allurements could alter his 
mind ; but in a conversation with Mr. J enkins, the 
latter showed him a way out of his difficulty. I 
must do Jenkins the justice to say that he had used 
no direct influence to induce Robert McGregor to 
enter into any of his (Jenkins’) speculations. 

‘‘ If you have your mind made up, McGregor,” — 
Jenkins called every man by his name, without any 
preflx to it, half an hour after he got to know him 
— If you have your mind made up about keeping 
your funds in bank, why, it’s all right ; but before 
I would have money, only drawing six per cent., 
I would play pitch with it ; however, as I have said, 
that’s your business ; but you have real estate, have 
you not ?” 

“ Yes,” replied Robert, “several lots, and some 
land close to the town.” 

“Well, sell some of your property in this hum- 
drum little town, and invest the money in a city 
that, not yet two years old, is destined to have its 
hundred thousand inhabitants before ten years, 
and its round half million in twenty years.” 

Accordingly, Robert sold some property, a small 
amount at first, and invested it in the new city. 
Within a month he was offered three times the 
amount he paid for the property he purchased. 
Like others, he grew excited, he sold out — with the 
exception of the cottage and the ground it was built 
on — all his property in and around P , and in- 


108 


DEAD BROKE. 


vested every dollar of the money realized, in Jenk- 
ins’ city. 

‘‘ I suppose fate has decreed that we are to be rich 
folks, after all, Lucie,” he said. 

“ Or poor, Robert !” 

ic Why, you little croaker. But really, Lucie, I 
have only risked what was bringing us little or 
nothing. I have not risked my greatest treasure, 
my little wife,” and he playfully caught her in his 
arms. 

“Mr. Jenkins would tell you I was not negotiable 
paper, Robert,” replied Lucie, disengaging herself 
from her husband’s arms, and blushing at that praise 
which is ever sweet to a true wife. 

This was in 1856, and in the following year came 
the financial crash of fifty-seven, so widespread in the 
West that it had the appearance of a national bank- 
ruptcy. Banks and bubbles broke alike ; embryo 
cities and towns went back to their normal state — 
portions of the primeval forests, and bears and 
wolves lodged unmolested in “ Lafayette Avenues” 
and “Washington Squares.” 

Jenkins’ great city, on Lake Superior, met the 
common fate ; residents who the year before used 
actually to keep out of the way of speculators that 
every steamboat that arrived landed on the wharf, 
in quest of corner lots, now offered their proper- 
ties to captains of steamboats for a passage to De- 
troit, Buffalo, or Chicago. 

One of this class said to the writer, in fifty-seven, 
on board the ill-fated Lady Elgin, from whose good 


DEAD BROKE. 


109 


natured Captain the late wealthy — in prospective — 
citizen of Jenkins’ great city, was getting a free 
passage : 

“ They, the speculators, were shaking the bags of 
gold at us, until we got frightened, and ran away.” 

He was running away in 1857, not from gold, but 
from the ruin, the stagnation, the utter poverty 
that had fallen upon the place. 

In this collapse of the bright bubbles of specu- 
lation, Robert McGregor was ruined ; in his case, 
indeed, it appeared that irretrievable ruin had over- 
taken him. In the case of such a man as Jenkins, 
it was but a knock down and a jump up again, but 
with the other, it was the first and the final blow. 

The first news that came to Robert, was the fail- 
ure of the bank in which his money was deposited. 
It seemed that owners heretofore esteemed as safe, 
honorable men, had speculated with their own cap- 
ital, and the funds entrusted to their keeping, in 
the most reckless manner, and their liabilities far 
exceeded their assets. It was fortunate, perhaps, 
for Robert that he did not immediately recognize 
the full extent of his losses. Some little time 
elapsed before he gave up all hope of recovering 
some portion of his capital lodged in the bank. 
Then he wrote to Jenkins, who, with his wife, had 
gone to New York, telling him that he wished to 
sell out at any sacrifice, the real estate he had pur- 
chased in the new city, on Lake Superior. He re- 
ceived a characteristic reply from that gentleman. 

It is all up, McGregor,” he wrote. I don’t be- 
10 


110 


DEAD BROKE. 


lieve you could get a man who would take the 
property off your hands on condition to pay the 
taxes. It is devilish unlucky ; the cleanest sweep 
I ever knew ; but we’ll pull through and come out 
yet right side up. Entre nous^ was not that 
stupid little father-in-law of mine wise in his genera- 
tion. Fortunate, wasn’t it ; he can now help me a 
little to get on my legs, for I feel slightly groggy. 
Nasty weather here, all slush and rain. 

“ Yours to command, 

“J. J. Jenkins.” 

On the receipt of this letter Robert set off to 
Lake Superior. It was getting late in the fall 
when he reached Jenkins’ City, and most of the de- 
luded inhabitants had made their escape. The new 
stores erected in the one straggling street were 
shut up. With the help of a guide, Robert found 
out his property on Franklin street, thickly settled 
with black stumps. 

As Robert was well dressed and looking after 
property, the few poor inhabitants that remained 
in the place, because they had no means of leaving, 
supposed him to be one of the company who had 
seduced them into the wilderness, and scowled at 
him as he passed along. 

Jenkins’ letter, plain as it was, had not prepared 
him for the blank failure that he looked upon, 
and with a heavy heart he went on board the steam- 
boat by which he came, to return. There were but 
few passengers on board; the weather was what 


DEAD BROKE. 


Ill 


sailors term dirty, and sitting apart in the saloon, 
Kobert had plenty of time to think over his alter- 
ed fortunes. 

It is wonderful how quickly we can adapt our- 
selves to novel and startling situations. Had Rob- 
ert McGregor a few weeks ago asked himself as 
an abstract question : “ What would I do should all 

my means be suddenly swept away ?” very likely 
his mind would suggest some such answer as, ‘‘ I 
would go crazy, it would kill me.” But there is a 
grand elasticity in the human heart, ere grief and 
sorrow have weakened its life pulse, and when 
Robert’s meditations were broken in upon by the 
sound of the supper gong, he went to table with 
a good appetite, and with a cheerfulness surprising 
to himself, and joined in general conversation with 
the captain and passengers. As he sandwiched 
himself that night into one of the berths of the 
little box called a state room, he thought : “ Well, I 

know the worst now, and must meet it like a man, 
God helping me ; I shall work for Lucie and the 
children,” and with this brave resolve he fell asleep. 

I can imagine nothing more exhilarating than 
the change from the stifling little stateroom to the 
deck of a Lake Superior boat, on a fine, clear 
morning. No thought of a long, uncertain voyage 
disturbs the mind. No monotony of a boundless 
expanse of water ; no depressing thoughts of land- 
ing among strangers in a strange land ; but the 
clearest and brightest of American waters under 
your heel, the American flag over your head, Amer- 


112 


DEAD BROKE. 


ica’s broad expanse of shore and forest in view, 
and at every dent and nook, called a harbor, that 
the boat enters, the stars and stripes to greet you. 

Such a morning and such a scene greeted Kob- 
ert, when he went on deck the second day. The 
weather had cleared up during the night ; the air 
was bracing, without being at all chilly, the lake 
calm, and the blue sky without a cloud. 

The boat had passed La Pointe, and the Apostle 
Islands were no longer in sight; but as Robert 
looked astern, he saw them rising, as it were, from 
the depth of the lake, and floating high up in space, 
while gigantic trees flung their shadows deep down 
into the clear waters beneath. 

“ That is one of our Lake Superior mirages,” said 
the captain, as he noticed his passenger gazing at 
the phenomenon ; “ it is a sign of good weather.” 

“ And I, too,” thought Robert, his spirits reviving 
under the combined influences of pure air, quick 
motion, and grand scenery, “I, too, accept it as a 
good omen.” 

From the troubled waters of affliction, God’s love 
draws us up nearer to himself. 

Having disembarked at Detroit, he arrived in 

P on the evening of the eighth day since he left. 

He had never been so long absent from his family 
since his marriage, and with hurried steps he passed 
through the streets on his way to his home. 

When he came within sight of his cottage, two 
curly-headed little fellows rushed out of the garden, 
clapping their hands, and calling out at the top of 


DEAD BROKE. 


113 


their voices : Papa ! Papa !” while Lucie stood at 
the door of the cottage with baby in her arms. 

Robert’s heart gave a great leap ; catching up the 
children, he hurried forward, and in one loving em- 
brace encircled his wife and child. 

Once again at home, with the excitement of the 
journey, the anticipation of return over, Robert’s 
spirits underwent one of those sudden revulsions 
peculiar to nervous temperaments. 

As he looked at his wife and children, the thought 
of his great loss and of the uncertain future, press- 
ed down upon him with such intense force, that 
he felt as if it would have been a relief to cry 
out. 

Lucie had noticed the change. Her love had de- 
tected every shadow as it came to her husband’s 
spirit; but she had resolved if possible to keep him 
from speaking of business, this, the first evening 
of his return home. So she bustled about, and 
laughed and talked with such seeming light-heart- 
edness, that Robert looked at her with amazement. 
But when the children were put to bed, Lucie en- 
tered the study where her husband was, and sitting 
down beside him, she drew him toward her until 
her head rested on his bosom. 

“ I thought, Robert,” she said, “ not to allow you 
to speak about business this evening; but I find I 
cannot keep it from your thoughts ; so tell me all, 
love ; can there be anything worse than that which 
we know already ? Speak, love, my heart is listen- 
ing to you.” 

10 ^ 


114 


DEAD BEOKE. 


“Nothing worse, darling,” he answered, “but 
everything is confirmed.” 

“Very well,” she said, “all the better not to be 
left in suspense. And now, what is the worst, dear ? 
That we are poor, Robert ? my normal state,” she 
continued, playfully patting his cheek. “ I shall be 
quite at home in it; I shall feel as I do when I lay 
aside a fine dress, and, putting on an every-day one, 
have a romp with the children. Poverty never 
caused me a sigh when I had to meet it alone. 
Now I have you to lean on, and you, dear, have me, 
and we both have the children to love and labor 
for. Oh, God ! forgive me for saying that we are 
poor; we are rich, Robert, very rich, and we will be 
very, very happy !” 

And there rained down upon his face, not tears — 
no, not one tear — but a shower of warm kisses. 

Her brave words, her tender, active love, re- 
stored to her husband’s mind its healthy tone. “ He 
would set about doing something at once.” 

What that something was, was the difficult ques- 
tion that husband and wife did not discuss for the 
present. 

The next evening Mr. Flitters and his daughter, 
Polly, called. Lucie was very fond of pretty Polly, 
and the latter had spent almost all her time at the 
cottage while Robert was away. Since the mar- 
riage of her sisters, her father seemed to under- 
stand and appreciate her much better than before, 
for her individuality was no longer hidden by their 
dashing, fashionable airs. When her sisters left, 


DEAD BROKE. 


115 


Polly got nearer to her father, to the great satisfac- 
tion of both. So they often now took walks to- 
gether, always with a sense of relief and pleasure, 
when they found themselves beyond the ken of 
that able woman, Mrs. Flitters. 

Robert had a sincere friendship and respect for 
the little man, although he often laughed heartily 
at the way he had of dodging Mrs. Flitters’ magnif- 
icence, to prevent his being altogether crushed by 
it. They were, in fact, intimate friends, and though 
so essentially different in almost every respect, en- 
joyed each other’s society very much. On this 
evening Flitters seemed unusually restrained and 
bothered. At length, after polishing his head, un- 
til the excitement brought moisture to his face, he 
looked at Polly, and then at Lucie. The former 
seemed at once to understand the look, for she 
arose, and asking Lucie to accompany her for a 
moment, the two ladies left the room — the sigh of 
relief which accompanied their departure, assuring 
Polly that she had understood her father. When 
the door closed upon them. Flitters drew his chair 
close to Robert. 

“ You went up to that new city?” he said. 

“City?” replied Robert, bitterly. “Yes, a city 
with a few tumble-down shanties, black stumps, 
and a few houses built by speculators, for bait to 
catch gudgeons,” 

“Then you cannot get anything out of it?” 

“ No, I was glad enough to get myself out of it.” 

“ And the bank ?” 


116 


DEAD BROKE. 


Every cent gone, my friend ; you must look not 
to give me credit at the store.” 

What are you going to do ?” 

Robert twitched, and a frown came to his face. 

You must not be vexed,” said the little man, 
if a friend asks you what half the town is ask- 
ing behind your back.” 

^‘No, no, Mr. Flitters, I am not vexed,” said Rob- 
ert, “I know you mean kindly, but all this is so 
new to me. And now to answer your question, 1 
don’t well know what I shall do.” 

You have no knowledge of the family grocery 
and provision business,” said the other, in a kind of 
musing tone. 

Robert smiled. No, no,” he said, although 
some fellows in my place might have an idea of 
doing something- with rope.” 

Robert had not perpetrated his poor joke with 
the slightest idea that it would be understood by 
Flitters. 

“Well, well,” said the latter, appearing and dis- 
appearing behind his hand rapidly, “it is out of 
my line to advise you, but until you settle your 
business you may be short of cash, and I just took 
the liberty of filling up this check,” and he drew a 
fat pocketbook from his pocket, and commenced to 
open it. 

“Stop, Mr. Flitters,” said Robert, catching his 
hand, and giving it a warm shake. “I am not in 
want of money as yet, thank you all the same ; and 
I promise, if I ever ask a man for the loan of 


DEAD BROKE. 


117 


money, it will be you. See, I can give you a cigar 
yet, and here is a lighted match — now draw.” 

Flitters obeyed the order, and as he smoked, his 
eyes revolved from the brick house, seen dimly 
through the twilight, to Robert’s face. 

At length a revelation seemed to dawn upon him. 
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, as stooping 
over, he said in a low voice to Robert : ‘‘ Maybe 

you think that she would know something about 
it?” 

“ Oh no, Mr. Flitters,” answered Robert, smiling, 
“ I am not, indeed, in present want of money ; and 
if I was, I could not take it, even from you, until 
I knew how it was to be repaid. Here comes Miss 
Polly, that took such good care of my wife while I 
was away,” and Robert, meeting the young girl as 
she entered the room with Lucie, took her soft, fair 
hand, and gallantly raised it to his lips. Polly’s 
heart just gave a little flutter, although for years he 
had been another’s. 

Robert accompanied his visitor down to the 
garden gate that night, and as he took the honest 
hand of Flitters in his own, he said: “ Don’t think 
I am ungrateful to you, or too proud either, but it 
is just as 1 told you.” 

After they had passed away, Robert remained 
leaning over the low gate. “So,” he mused, as a 
hot blush came to his face, “ half the town is ask- 
ing what I am going to do.” 

His spirit yet unbroken, resented this interfer- 
ence in his affairs. He was learning his first lesson ; 


118 


DEAD BROKE. 


he knew that he was poor. He had yet to learn all 
that that means. 

Robert McGregor was to set about doing some- 
thing at once ; so he had told Lucie, and so he had 
resolved. 

He had borne up against the reverses that came 
so suddenly on him, that had left him — who hereto- 
fore never for one hour knew the want of money — 
penniless. 

With means amply sufficient for his wants, with- 
out any unhealthy craving for riches, monetary mat- 
ters heretofore had the least place in his thoughts. 
It was more from a feeling that he should not be 
altogether idle and indifferent, in the midst of so 
much activity and enterprise, rather than the desire 
for wealth, which had led him to embark in Jenkins’ 
speculations. It was his early resolve always to 
keep secure a sufficiency which would make him 
independent of the world, and allow him to carry 
out his own idea of happiness, that caused him to 
leave his ready money in a bank, rather than in- 
vest it in any business that might have a shadow of 
risk about it. But now, all his plans, anticipations, 
fancied security, were swept away, and he was 
rudely awakened from his tranquil dream of hap- 
piness, to be thrust forth to battle in a situation new 
to him, with a world yesterday all smiles, but now 
black and threatening. 

He had resolved to do something; in the full 
strength of his manhood, with intellect and educa- 
tion, what was to prevent him ? 


DEAD BROKE. 


119 


There was one thing, and a very serious difficulty 
it was — he had never done anything, and a whole 
year elapsed, in .which the question of what he 
should do was almost daily discussed by himself 
and his wife, without any practical results. 

At first these little family councils were full of 
hope. Lucie, who, when but a very little girl, had 
commenced to support herself by her own exer- 
tions, would not have been a bad counsellor, but 
that love made her overrate Robert’s qualifications. 
She had the most exaggerated idea of his fitness 
for anything he would undertake, and was positive 
that every description of person, from the President 
down, would be eager to avail themselves of his 
services. 

Indeed, she suggested to Robert, that he should 
see the President, and tell him “just how matters 
were.” 

Oh, the building of those castles in the air ! how 
lofty they were at first, then more modest, some- 
times fading away, then reappearing — the plan 
devised, settled upon in the evening, becoming im- 
practicable the next morning. 

And with these changing views came a corres- 
ponding change of spirit, more perceptible in Rob- 
bert than in his brave little wife, who, for his sake, 
would not allow the world to rob him of her smiles. 
And many a time when, with a heavy, foreboding 
heart, she went about her household duties, her 
song and merry laugh would reach her husband’s 
ears, and he would mentally say : “ Thank God, 


120 


DEAD BROKE. 


poor Lucie does not fully realize- the terrible posi- 
tion we are in.” 

In this, Kobert McGregor made a mistake very 
common to the male portion of the human race, 
who, being of a coarser nature than women, seldom 
understand or value their subtile heroism. 

When misfortunes besiege us, man shows a bold 
front on the battlements, to the enemy ! But to 
woman is given the more delicate and difficult task 
of keeping up hope and faith within the garrison 
itself. 

Thus a whole year passed by without anything 
being actually effected toward Robert’s procuring 
suitable employment. 

Outside his professional calls. Doctor McGregor 

had never mixed much in the society of P , 

and his son had still fewer intimate acquaintances. 
Indeed, when the latter thought over the matter, 
he found that Flitters was the only one in the town 
that he regarded in the light of a friend, and of all 
others. Flitters was the least able to advise or sug- 
gest anything outside of what he called, “ his line of 
business.” 

Flitters, as we have seen, offered to lend him 
money, but Robert had wisely resolved not to add 
to his troubles and humiliations by borrowing, and 
in every other way Flitters was totally unable to 
serve him. But now Robert McGregor’s resources 
were exhausted ; the shadow of poverty was dark- 
ening his threshhold ; he could no longer debate at 
his own fireside the question, what shall I do ? He 


DEAD BROKE. 


121 


must go forth and ask of the world, what will you 
give me to do ? And he did, seeking employment 

first outside of P , but his not being familiar 

with any particular branch of business was a disad- 
vantage he found it impossible to overcome. In 
dealing with strangers, he found it a most humiliat- 
ing disadvantage, for people were not inclined to 
look very favorably upon a man who had arrived at 
his time of life without any business employment. 

Weary and dispirited, he returned to P . Here 

at least he was known, and would not have to 
answer a long list of questions ; so he went among 
his acquaintances. Some expressed regret at his 
altered circumstances; others undertook to show 
how it was all his own fault ; and others patroniz- 
ingly pitied him. He was growing old in humilia- 
tion. Already he had traveled such a distance 
from his old life, that it appeared visionary, unreal, 
when seen from the grey, sunless reality of the 
present. 

At length he was offered, and accepted the place 

of teacher in the public school of P , at a salary 

of fifty dollars a month, and as the school was open 
for nine months in the year, his salary kept him 
from what is called actual want; that is, he was 
not compelled either to commit highway robbery 
or go to the workhouse. He had still his cottage, 
and he clung to it as to a last friend. 

Indeed, property had depreciated so much in- 

P for some years, following the year fifty-seven, 

that, was he willing to sell his home, he would have 
11 


122 


DEAD BROKE. 


found it difficult to procure a purchaser. He had 
another advantage, greater than the home that 
sheltered him — he did not get in debt. He had been 
suddenly flung from independence, from refined 
contentment, to struggle with poverty. He had 
become familiar with its poor make-shifts, its cease- 
less problem of how to make something very nar- 
row cover something very wide, its vulgar famili- 
arity, its actual wants ; but he had escaped the 
demon that springs from the jaws of poverty, and 
crushes out the spirit, the manhood, the very soul 
of its victim ; he was not in debt. 

Whether it was his pride or his strict principles, 
whatever the motive that actuated him, it was to 
him, in this respect, a guardian angel, preserving 
him from the most poisoned arrow poverty has 
in its quiver. Thus toiling for those he loved, it 
could not be said that he was unhappy. No man 
of his nature and principles, with a home like his 
to return to, could be actually unhappy. 

The sparkle, the light joy of life had passed 
away; but its sweet love, purified, made patient 
and strong by trials, and unshaken faith in the pro- 
vidence of a heavenly Father, these still remained. 

Robert McGregor had entered upon the third 
year of his teacher’s life. The long summer vaca- 
tion had just commenced, and after a warm day, 
Lucie and her husband, sitting in the cottage porch, 
while their children played around, were enjoying 
the cool of the evening, so delicious and soothing, 
after a hot parching sun. 


DEAD BROKE. 


123 


Of the two, Robert was far more changed in 
appearance. He had a careworn look very per- 
ceptible in his face, when it was in repose, his old 
elasticity of step was changed into a sober, and at 
times, a weary gait; and the pleasant lighting up 
of eye and features — that in other days, the sim- 
plest passing emotion would bring forth — seldom 
came now without an effort. But Lucie was still 
bright and beautiful. Her early training had made 
her cheerfully accept work when it came ; constant 
employment kept her healthy in mind and body, 
and could she but feel that her husband was happy, 
she would be so in her present humble, busy life. 

She had fretted most, immediately after her hus- 
band’s losses, because everything was vague and 
unsettled. But now they had settled down to de- 
cent poverty, and as she told Robert once, ‘‘ she 
was quite at home in it.” A woman whose love is 
great enough to fill her whole being, can never 
be unhappy, so long as the object of her love is 
left to her. Besides, poverty is always more evi- 
dent in a man’s dress than in a woman’s ; I speak 
now of honest, independent poverty, that wears its 
own clothes. 

In cases of this kind you can almost trace its 
stages by the nap of a man’s hat ; Robert’s was be- 
coming brown, next season it would be foxy red ; 
his best coat was worn at the seams, with an un- 
healthy gloss on its sleeves. 

We pay our teachers about half the wages of 
mechanics, and expect them to dress in broad- 


124 


DEAD BROKE. 


cloth and fine linen, and they, from necessity, com- 
promise the matter by appearing in seedy gentility. 

But Lucy, in her neat, well-fitting, calico dress, 
that she made, washed, and ironed herself, might 
have walked by the side of a duke, and his titles 
would have been outranked by her grace and 
beauty. 

On this evening she looked unusually well, for 
an event had occurred during the day which brought 
a pleasant excitement to the inmates of Inverness 
Cottage, and Lucie, her cheeks rosy from the un- 
usual exercise of milking a cow — that had a very 
prominent part in the excitement referred to — was 
now for the second or third time discussing it in all 
its details with her husband. 

In the morning, a man driving a wagon, in 
which sat a respectable-looking, middle-aged wo- 
man, drove up to the gate of the cottage. 

A fine cow, tied by a rope to the hinder part of 
the wagon, followed after. 

Pulling up, the man got down and helped his 
companion to alight. Robert, who was sitting at 
the window, concluded that they were people in 
from the country who had some farm produce to 
sell, and when they advanced up the garden walk, 
he went to the door to meet them. 

Both had pleasant faces, and as they drew near 
they smiled, as if they knew the gentleman who 
waited for them, although he could not remember 
having seen either of them before. 

The man was the first to speak. 


DEAD BROKE. 


125 


“I believe you are Mr. McGregor, sir?” he said. 

‘‘ Indeed, an’ he is,” said the woman, coming in 
front. “ I know him, though I havn’t set eyes on 
him since he was a little boy. He is Kobert Mc- 
Gregor, and that’s the sweetest name that ever 
sounded in my ears. How are you, Mr. McGregor, 
and how is all the family ?” and she gave Robert’s 
hand a hearty shake. 

There was such thorough good nature in her ad- 
dress, that he could not think of asking her who she 
was, so he returned her greeting, and asked her in. 

“ Myself and my husband, sir, Tom Mahon, sir — ” 
here Tom stretched out his big hand, and gave 
Robert a mighty grip — “ have come on a little 
business, to you,” she said. 

So, thought Robert, as a change came to his man- 
ner, there is some reason for this assumed good 
nature. 

“ Come in here,” he said, leading the way to the 
study, “ and you can tell me what you want.” 

They had hardly entered the room, when Mrs. 
Mahon, who, woman-like, had cast her eyes all 
round, caught sight of Doctor McGregor’s portrait, 
suspended from the v/all. With an exclamation 
she hurried forward, and standing before it, gave 
way to an impassioned burst of grief, characteristic 
of her race. 

“Come here, Tom,” she sobbed, as the tears 
rolled down her face. “ There is our friend, Tom, the 
friend of the poor ; that’s his picture ; but he is in a 
better place himself, as high in heaven as the best 
11 ^ 


126 


DEAD BROKE. 


of them, for sure, there is no one nearer to God’s 
heart, than them who love his poor.” 

Her husband stood looking respectfully at the 
portrait for a little while, then he said : 

‘‘ Hush, Mary, you’re making too free, and may 
be annoying the gentleman, who cannot understand 
you. Quiet yourself, Mary, and tell him all about 
it.” 

Kobert, indeed, was greatly moved at so unex- 
pected a scene, the sincerity of which there was no 
room to doubt, and at the simple words of praise 
bestowed on his father, his eyes filled with tears. 

You knew my father, then ?” he said 

“ Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Mahon, growing some- 
what calm, and taking a chair which Robert of- 
fered her; “I had a good right to know him, he 
was the best friend I ever had. Indeed, I could 
not help myself, when I saw his likeness there ; you 
must forgive me for making so free like.” 

‘‘ I have nothing to forgive, Mrs. Mahon,” he 
answered, ‘‘ and I am glad to meet one who speaks 
so feelingly of my beloved father.” 

Here Lucie entered the room, followed by the 
children. 

This is my wife, Mrs. Mahon,” continued Robert. 

Mrs. Mahon rose. “ How are you, ma’am,” she 
said, respectfully. 

Lucie saluted both her visitors. 

‘‘And look at the beautiful children, Tom,” said 
Mrs. Mahon, addressing her husband. “ Give me 
what I gave you to keep.” Tom Mahon dived his 


DEAD BROKE. 


127 


hand into his pocket, wrestled for a moment with 
something in its lowest depths, and then drew forth 
a paper parcel, and handed it to his wife. 

‘‘A little candy, ma’am,” continued the latter, 
‘‘for the children; sure, I knew I’d find them here. 
There, dears, divide it. Tom, look after the horses.” 

Tom, who, just as anxious as his wife to pay 
this visit, had nevertheless made no calculation for 
a scene, seemed very glad to escape out of the 
room, and when he was gone, Mrs. Mahon, again re- 
suming her seat, commenced an explanation of her 
visit. 

“ I don’t know, Mr. McGregor,” she said, “ that 
you ever heard of us, but we lived near here in the 
Beaver Dam settlement, over fifteen years ago, and 
I often saw you with your father, when you were a 
little boy. We were very poor, Tom had no money to 
hire help to clear the land, and not being long from 
the old country, he was no great hand at the ax 
himself. So our clearing was only small, and the 
best support we had for the children was our one 
cow, and the cow died, ma’am — turning to Lucie — 
oh, would you believe it, ma’am, I gave up entirely, 
God forgive me, and got sick on the head of the 
cow. Well, my husband went for Doctor McGregor, 
your father, sir, for the poorer you were, sir, the 
quicker the doctor would come to you. He came, 
and good luck, happiness, and comfort came in 
along with him, and remained with us ever since. 
He came when there was such a heavy cloud rest- 
ing on my heart, that it could not see God, and he 


128 


DEAD BROKE. 


raised it off with his good words and kind voice. 
When he told me that we should never forget 
that there was one above, who could make the 
darkest night bright as day, I remembered that I 
had learned the same lesson, though said different- 
ly, from my own mother, at home; but the hard- 
ships in the woods of America had driven it out 
of my mind, until your father’s words brought it 
back. The next morning, ma’am, (turning again to 
Lucie,) one of Doctor McGregor’s best cows was 
standing at my door; and from that day to this 
good luck has followed us. I don’t know, sir, if 
you ever heard anything of what I am telling 
you ?” 

I remember something about it, I think,” an- 
swered Robert, “because a man named Weasel, who 
was mayor here afterwards, undertook to lecture 
my father in reference to this very incident, and 
received such a well-merited rebuke, that he was 
an enemy of my father from that time.” 

“Well, sir,” continued Mrs. Mahon, “as I was 
telling you, good luck came along with the doctor 
into our house. To be sure, the fine cow was a 
great help ; but it wasn’t so much that, sir, as 
the new courage that came to Tom’s heart and my 
own. Oh, courage is everything, ma’am. Tom 
made a fine clearing that year, and when he had all 
the brush burned off, and was ready to put in the 
corn, do you know what he says to me, ma’am ? ‘ I 

wish, Mary, Doctor McGregor would come along, 
until I’d show him this field.’ Do you think, sir, 


DEAD BROKE. 


129 


but the same thought was in my own mind. I 
don’t know how it was; that is, I can’t explain it; 
but it seemed from this out, as if we worked to 
please the doctor, like, to show him that we were 
not undeserving of his goodness ; to make his words, 
his promise of better times, come true. Well, five 
years after this we sold our farm here for a good price, 
and moved to a new one, near Grand Rapids, about 
thirty-five miles from this. We sold everything we 
had on the old place, but your father’s present; 
we brought her with us, and she died with us. In 
this very room my husband and myself bid your 
father good-by, Mr. McGregor, and when we told 
him, Mrs. McGregor, ma’am, that we were bringing 
our good luck along with us, meaning the cow, you 
should see how he rubbed his hands together, and 
the pleasant smile that came to his face.” 

Robert McGregor shaded his eyes with his hand. 
With what vivid distinctness he remembered that 
familiar action of his father — when greatly pleased 
— that Mrs. Mahon had spoken of. 

“ I’m tiring you,” continued the latter, “ with my 
long story; but I’ll soon be done. We have as fine 
a farm now, Mr. McGregor, as you could find from 
here to there, and sixteen cows come into our yard 
to be milked. The children are good, and healthy, 
and able to help us now, and not a sorrow worth 
talking of did we know for many a day, until we 
heard, a little while ago, of the misfortunes that 
had overtaken yon, sir; how you were robbed of the 
honest fortune your father left to you, by a lot of vil- 


130 


DEAD BROKE. 


lains. The ways of the Lord are wonderful, blessed 
be his holy name. Sure, if ever money was to have 
luck, your father’s should. That’s what we think ; 
but God is the wisest. Oh, that was a dark day to 
my husband and myself when we heard of your 
great loss. ‘Tom,’ says I, ‘ we must go and see 
them. Patrick and Kittie are old enough to take 
care of the place while we are away.’ ‘Very well, 
Mary,’ says he ; ‘ I would walk on my knees to see 
them, if I thought it would do them any good.’ 
‘It will do them good,’ says I, ‘it will do us good. 
In his own house, that sorrow has darkened, I will 
tell the son the same words his father told me in 
my poor cabin, and Tom, asthore, they will sound 
like a message from that good father to the child 
he loved so well.’” 

Mrs. Mahon paused, for her voice had become 
broken, and her face flushed and tearful. 

Silently Lucie moved over to her husband’s side, 
and took his hands in both her own. On the hands 
thus clasped, the tears of husband and wife rained 
down warmly and gently. 

After a little, their visitor again spoke. 

“ It was Tom himself that thought of taking the 
liberty of bringing the cow that’s outside, as a 
present to you, Mrs. McGregor — to be sure, we owe 
it; but it’s not that at all, oh, no, indeed, Mrs. 
McGregor, we would never think of it at all, 
only she’s granddaughter to the one we got from 
the doctor ; that’s it, you see, sir. ‘ Maybe, 
Mary,’ says Tom, the very morning he was tying 


DEAD BROKE. 


131 


the cow behind the wagon, ‘ maybe Mr. McGregor 
would be vexed at our taking such a liberty.’ 
‘ Whist,’ says I, ‘ he might, if we were rich folks, 
showing oif like ; but his father’s son is not likely 
to misunderstand us.’ And wasn’t I right, Mr. Mc- 
Gregor ? And sure 3mu will not be too proud to al- 
low Mrs. McGregor to take this little present from 
me ? If I made myself understood at all, you know 
that the favor will be all on your side.” 

‘‘No, indeed, Mrs. Mahon,” answered Robert, 
“ you must not think anything of the kind ; we will 
take your present, a most valuable one at the pres- 
ent time, for we are very poor. I thank you a 
thousand times for your visit,” he continued, as he 
shook her hand warmly; “you have cheered me, 
and strengthened my trust in God, and my faith in 
human nature.” 

Tom Mahon now entered the room, and Robert, 
going up to him, took his honest hand, while Mrs. 
Mahon, nodding vigorously, said : 

“ It’s all right, Tom.” 

“ And now, Lucie,” said Robert, “get our friends 
something to eat, while I show Mr. Mahon where to 
put up his horses. You will remain with us to-day, 
Mrs. Mahon.” 

“No, Mr. McGregor, we can’t,” she answered; 
“ we only left young people in the house, and we 
must get home to-day.” 

“ Well, we will argue that point by-and-by,” said 
Robert, as he and Mahon left the room. 

By the time the horses and cow were in the barn. 


132 


DEAD BROKE. 


the former supplied with the feed that Mahon had 
carried from home with him, and the children res- 
cued for the sixth or seventh time from imminent 
danger, incurred by the wild manner they rush- 
ed around the horses, Lucie had a plain dinner — 
the best she could furnish — ready ; and all sat down 
with a good appetite, and enjoyed it thoroughly. 
But Lucie or Robert could not prevail upon their 
visitors to remain the day. 

“They were too anxious about the houseful of 
children they left behind them,” Mrs. Mahon said. 

As she stood waiting for her husband to bring 
the wagon round, she turned to Robert, and said. 

“ Mr. McGregor, mark my words. God has tried 
you sorely, but he has not deserted you. Good 
days are in store for you yet. A child of Doctor 
McGregor's cannot fail but to have good fortune 
even in this world, in the long run; now mark my 
words, and promise that you’ll come to tell the 
old woman of the good fortune, when it comes.” 

“ I promise, Mrs. Mahon,” answered Robert, with 
a cheerful smile. And then he thought of the 
words of the Psalmist, “I have been young, and 
am now old ; and I have not seen the just forsaken, 
nor his seed seeking bread.” 

And this faith, this beautiful trust in the special 
interposition of God in regard to each and all of 
his creatures, as clear to the uneducated mind of 
Mrs. Mahon as to the inspired David, the Agassiz, 
the Darwins, and material philosophers of the 
present day — each in his own way — would rob men 


DEAD BROKE. 


133 


of. What do they offer in return ? What do they 
offer for that faith in Divine revelation, which is a 
. pillar of light to guide us, a pillar of strength to 
support us in the sorrows, trials and vicissitudes of 
life? What do they offer in exchange? Nothing. 

In the human heart they rob of its faith, they 
leave a dull, aching want they cannot satisfy or 
stifle. Better paganism than this. Better to sacri- 
fice to the “unknown God,” than to lose God alto- 
gether, through the mystifying evolutions of modern 
philosophy. 

But Mr. Mahon is sitting in his wagon, waiting at 
the gate for his wife. She kisses the children, gives 
Lucie a kiss on each cheek, and then, taking Rob- 
ert’s hands in hers, she says : “ God be with you, 

Mr. McGregor.” 

The whole family accompany her to the gate, 
when the kissing and hand-shaking are repeated. 
Lucie lifts up little Mary for Tom Mahon to kiss, 
then he shakes hands with Mrs. McGregor tenderly, 
but gives Robert a mighty squeeze. The wagon 
moves off, and Mrs. Mahon, with her head turned 
round, calls out cheerily : 

“ Remember your promise, Mr. McGregor !” 

Then, as the wagon turns out of view, the cheer- 
ful expression of the face gives place to one of 
gentle sadness, as she says sorrowfully : 

“ Oh ! my poor, poor gentleman !” 

The rest of the day was one of great excitement 
at Inverness Cottage. Innumerable excursions were 
made to the barn by the children, and at least four 
12 


134 


DEAD BKOKE. 


state visits were paid, by the entire family, to Mrs. 
Mahon’s cow. 

Doctor McGregor was right when he said to Solo- 
mon Weasel, “ Oast your bread upon the waters.” 

The visit of the Mahons acted as a healthy tonic 
on Robert McGregor’s jaded spirit. He went off 
in quest of hay for the cow, and when he returned 
with it, the excitement became intense. I doubt if 
any farm-yard in the country could show such 
lively industry as was displayed in and around the 
barn, for an hour or more. 

It was a miracle that the two boys, Robert and 
James, did not break their necks from the reckless 
manner they swung themselves up into the loft. 

Then Robert, with his coat off, tossed them up 
the hay, half of each forkful invariably coming 
back upon his head and shoulders, at which little 
Mary, standing by her mother’s side, would clap her 
hands and laugh ; and Robert, shaking himself free 
of the hay, would look back at both and laugh, 
while the royal rooster, with slow, majestic steps, 
and followed by his whole feathered harem, per- 
ambulated round the yard, and in clarion tones, 
protested against this invasion of vested rights. 

Oh! blessings on you, bright jets of sunshine 
that come into the poor man’s life. I doubt not 
but that you are healthier and better than the con- 
tinued glare of the hot sun of prosperity, so apt to 
shrivel up the heart. 

And now the excitement had subsided, the cow 
was milked, the barn door locked, and, as I said be- 


DEAD BROKE. 


135 


fore, Lucie and her husband sat in the cottage 
porch, chatting over the incident of the friendly 
visit they had received that day, while their chil- 
dren played around. 

“ Robert,” said Lucie, after a brief pause in the 
conversation, “I believe firmly in Mrs. Mahon’s 
prophecy of brighter days.” 

“ That is right, my little wife,” he answered, 
you have twice the faith and courage of your 
good-for-nothing husband.” 

Lucie twined one arm around Robert’s neck, and 
placing her hand upon his mouth, said : 

“ Stop instantly, sir, I will not hear a disparaging 
word said against that dear husband I love so well. 
You believe yourself, sir, in our grateful, good- 
natured Cassandra ; I see faith in your eyes.” 

‘‘ I believe, Lucie, in God’s loving care, and this 
friendly visit has been a most happy, hope-inspir- 
ing one, doing us a wonderful deal of good.” 

“ Wait now until I try and guess how our good 
luck is to come,” said Lucie, playfully. Then, after 
a pause, she clapped her hands and cried out, 
‘‘ Oh ! I have it. James Allen will return !” 

Robert almost started from his chair; his face 
flushed, and involuntarily he cast an eager look 
around. At that moment his second oldest boy 
was running by him. He caught the child, and 
pressed him to his breast. 

“ Oh, Jim, Jim,” he said, “ pray to God to send 
your namesake, my friend, my brother, back to 
me.” 


136 


DEAD BROKE. 


PART YII. 

The long months of vacation, during which there 
was no salary coming in, were a hard strain on 
Robert McGregor, and taxed Lucie’s economical 
devices and housekeeping strategy to the utmost. 

The year before, at this time, Robert sold his 
library, not getting one-fifth of its value, reserving 
only a few books, precious from being favorites of 
his father, and having notes in the latter’s hand- 
writing on their margins. Now they were compel- 
led to sell different pieces of furniture, getting next 
to nothing in money for articles, the removal of 
which made the house look so unhomelike, bare and 
poverty-stricken ; though Lucie strove, by refixing 
and devising with a woman’s taste and ingenuity, 
to cover over those poverty gaps in their home. 

It was a sad day at the cottage, when dire neces- 
sity first obliged its inmates to open their door to 
the second-hand furniture dealer. How carelessly 
he swaggered from room to room with his hat on ; 
while the children, wondering, frightened and in- 
dignant, followed him. 

How he shrugged his shoulders, grimaced, tossed 
about, and kicked with his big foot, articles highly 
valued by those accustomed to connect them with 
home associations. 

Unbidden, he swaggered into the study, where 
Robert followed him with hasty steps. 


DEAD BROKE. 


137 


There is nothing here,” said the latter, ‘‘ that I 
wish to sell.” 

“Well,” said the dealer, with a coarse laugh, 
“ that’s lucky enough, for I don’t believe there is 
much in it that you could sell, unless it was the old 
gentleman’s picture there.” 

Kobert’s face flushed with anger. “ That is my 
father’s likeness, sir,” he said, in a stern voice. 

“ Oh, no offence,” replied the man. “ But you 
see, we sometimes get a good customer for one of 
those old portraits.” 

“ I can’t see,” said Robert, “ what value a family 
portrait could be, unless to the family it belonged.” 

“ Can’t you see,” said the dealer, “ how it may 
be of value to people in search of a family ?” 

“In search of a family?” 

“ Yes, in search of old family pegs, to hang their 
new gentility upon. My father was in this business 
in New York, and he used to say that he sold dozens 
of families their ancestors. I sold your neighbor, 
Mrs. Flitters, a family portrait last week. A fine old 
gentleman, with silver buckles, silk stockings, and 
his hair powdered and tied in a queue behind ; he’s 
gone to New York to be cleaned. I’d bet the drinks 
that he’ll come back a near relative. Well, if you 
don’t want to sell any more of this old trumpery. 
I’ll pitch it into my wagon, and pay you.” 

It was a great relief to Robert when the dealer 
took his departure ; and with shame and sadness, 
the former looked around upon the dismantled 
house. Lucie went up to him, and putting her arm 
12 ^ 


138 


DEAD BROKE. 


around him, said, ‘‘There was too much old-fash- 
ioned furniture in the house altogether, Robert. 
Wait until I tidy up things, and it will look just as 
well as ever.” 

“ Yes, love,” he answered, fondling her cheek. 
“The old fashions follow the old times. How is 
this to end? Month after month, week after week, 
day after day, we grow poorer and poorer. How 
is it to end ?” 

“ As God wills, Robert,” she answered. 

“As God wills,” he repeated. “ Yes, as God wills. 
You are braver and stronger than I am, Lucie. I 
would be ashamed to tell you how weak and cow- 
ardly I feel to day.” 

“ You are not well,” she said, as she remarked 
his color come and go, and felt how feverish his 
hand was. “ You are ill, Robert, and never told 
me a word about it.” 

“ Only a slight cold, Lucie. I had a dread of the 
remorseless way you would begin to doctor me, did 
I say anything about it.” 

But the next day Robert was so seriously ill as to 
be unable to leave his bed, and in three days after, 
the doctor, who was called in, pronounced his case 
one of low fever. 

“ More will depend,” he said to Lucie — who fol- 
lowed him to the hall door, with anxious questions 
— “upon good nursing, than good doctoring.” 

Robert had said that she was braver and stronger 
than he. Pray God that it is so ; pray God that 
she is brave and strong now ; for the darkest trial, 


DEAD BROKE. 


139 


one that she must bear alone, has come to her ; as 
for weary weeks, with an admirably calm exterior, 
that overlooks not the smallest trifle of patient, 
loving care, she watches the flickering of that life, 
more precious to her than all else besides. 

It was at this time when friendship was such a 
boon, that Polly Flitters and her father proved 
themselves to be true and active friends. At the 
very outset of Eobert’s sickness. Flitters called, 
and putting a sum of money into Lucie’s hand, told 
her to draw on him for five times the amount, if 
necessary. 

“You can do nothing,” said the little man, pol- 
ishing his head, and then blowing his nose vigor- 
ously, as he saw Lucie’s tears silently coursing down 
her cheeks, “if you have money matters to bother 
you. Your husband would never let me accommo- 
date him, and he has just fretted himself into this 
sickness. Here is Polly coming over ; I must be 
off. Good-bye, and keep up your spirits.” 

And Polly came over, not to pay a visit; but to 
stay day and night with Lucie, during Robert’s ill- 
ness, (and, to do Mrs. Flitters justice, I must say 
that the young girl did this with her mother’s full 
approbation.) 

Polly attended to the house, and took care of the 
children, while Lucie remained in the sick ‘room; 
or she took the latter’s place when, worn out with 
watching, Lucie slept for a little while. How inex- 
pressibly dear she became to Lucie, during those 
anxious days. 


140 


DEAD BROKE. 


The doctor said that good nursing was what the 
patient required most, and love bestowed this lav- 
ishly. 

Three weeks after Robert had been attacked with 
fever, the crisis came on ; it was safely passed, and 
from this time he gradually recovered. 

Oh, the delight of seeing him smile again; of 
propping him up with pillows in an arm chair, 
while Lucie put fresh white sheets on his bed, and 
then, laying him down, refreshed and cool, kissed 
his thin cheek — all the time prattling away in low, 
musical tones, tremulous with joy, of pleasant trifles. 

It was fully six weeks before Robert was able to 
leave his room ; he had been attacked with sick- 
ness just at the close of vacation, and it was now 
the middle of October. Of course, another teacher 
had taken his place in the school ; he was dejDrived 
of the only means he had for the support of his 
family, and winter was coming on. Its outriders, 
the brown leaves, borne on the autumn winds, 
whirled by the window from which he sadly gazed. 

Lucie had left him alone for a few moments, and 
now returned with some grapes on a plate. 

“ Mrs. Flitters has sent you these grapes, Rob- 
ert,” she said, to coax your appetite.” 

‘‘ She is very kind,” he said. “ It seems to me 
that she has been supplying my appetite rather 
than coaxing it, since my recovery.” 

“ And as for Polly and Mr. Flitters,” said Lucie, 
with a grateful warmth, “ never, never, can we 
repay them for all their goodness.” 


DEAD BROKE. 


141 


“ You are right, love. Sit down, darling, near me ; 
I want to speak with yon. How did you manage 
to get along while I was sick?” 

‘‘ Mr. Flitters, Robert, gave me all the money I 
wanted.” 

“ So I thought, God bless him; but we must pay 
him, Lucie.” 

‘‘ Of course we shall. But do not, Robert, talk of 
business for a little while, until you have grown 
stronger.” 

‘‘ It will do me good, Lucie, to tell you of a plan 
I have in mind.” 

“ What is it?” 

‘‘We must sell this place for whatever it will 
bring, pay Mr. Flitters, and seek a new home fur 
ther West. What do you say, little wife ?” 

“Oh, it is just what I have been thinking of,” 
said Lucie, “ but feared to mention it, because I 
knew you loved your home so much.” 

“ Too much to live in it a pauper, Lucie.” 

Now that Robert was convalescent, Mr. Flitters 
generally spent part of every evening with him, 
and to him Robert disclosed his plan of selling his 
home. 

“ There is no demand or price for real estate here 
at present, I know,” said Robert. “ So that I can- 
not expect to get much for it; but I suppose I can 
get something.” 

“ The first thing you have to do, is to get well 
and strong,” replied his friend ; “ then you can look 
out for a purchaser.” 


142 


DEAD BROKE. 


This was so sensible an advice, that Robert de- 
termined to follow it, and his mind being tranquil- 
ized by the thought of the new effort he was about 
to make, he gradually recovered health and strength. 

But in the early part of November an event took 
place which brought about a sudden abandonment 
of all his late plans. 

Calling at the post office one morning, he re- 
ceived the following letter : 

Office of Henry Marsh, 
Attorney at Law, 

21 Chambers St., New York, Nov. 7, 1860. 

Sir: — I am directed by Mr. Geo. D. Livingstone, 
executor to the will of the late Wm. McGregor, to in- 
form you of the death of your uncle, which took 
place in this city, last month. Furthermore, I am 
instructed to say that it was the desire of the testator, 
that all persons interested in his will should be 
present at its opening, and as you are one of the 
legatees mentioned, and the executor wishes that 
you should have ample time to make preparations 
to attend, has fixed the 20th of next December, in 
the forenoon — at my office — as the time for the 
opening and reading of the will. 

Your ob’t serv’t, 

Henry F. Marsh. 

With this letter open in his hand, Robert rushed 
home. 

By the time Lucie had read it, he had recovered 
breath so far as to be able to explain to her that 
his uncle had been very rich, and, no doubt, left 


DEAD BROKE. 


143 


him a large sum. Then Lucie, with her arms around 
his neck, exclaimed with joy : 

“ Oh ! Robert, our fortune has come to us. But 
why did you never tell me about this rich uncle 
before ?” 

A sudden chill came to Robert at these words, 
and he answered, in a voice so changed, that Lucie 
looked up at him astonished. 

Because he had fallen out with my father and I, 
years ago, and the remembrance of the cause has 
always been painful to me.” 

Well, you see, he forgave, Robert. I’m so happy, 
for your sake. I must go and tell Polly Flitters, 
and do you, Robert, go at once, and tell the good 
news to Mr. Flitters, they deserve this from us. 
May I take the letter ? What will Mrs. Flitters say ? 
We must ask them all to come over this evening.” 

‘‘It can’t be otherwise,” thought Robert, when 
Lucie had left him ; “ the old man forgave me be- 
fore his death for the foolish trick Jim and I played 
him. I wish I had been near him, to have asked 
his forgiveness.” 

A happy party met at the cottage that evening. 
The good news had given Polly and Flitters, in a 
measure, as much delight as it had Robert and 
Lucie, and even Mrs. Flitters was sincere in her 
congratulations. 

Mr. Marsh’s letter was read over and over again ; 
but the closest study could get nothing more from 
it than the precise information it clearly conveyed. 
No hint as to the amount of fortune William Me- 


144 


DEAD BROKE. 


Gregor died possessed of, or the sum left to Rob- 
ert; nevertheless, the ladies made their calcula- 
tions, as to his legacy, which did not fall under 
fifty thousand dollars. 

The next day Robert answered Mr. Marsh’s letter, 
and informed that gentleman that he would be in 
New York at the time appointed. Now, aJ the 
near prospect of being able to pay him back, he 
had no hesitation in borrowing money from his 
friend Flitters, sufficient to pay his expenses to 
New York and back; but more than this he would 
not take. So Lucie, for a full week before his de- 
parture, was busy, renovating the well-worn suit he 
was to wear, and she performed such wonders in 
this refreshing line, that Polly and herself conclud- 
ed that Robert looked just downright splendid,” 
as he stood upon the platform of the rear car of the 
train that was speeding with him to New York, and 
waved his hand to them in farewell. 

When Robert McGregor reached New York, he 
lost no time in calling upon Mr. Marsh, whom he 
found a man about his own age, with affable, cour- 
teous manners. 

“I have just received a note from Mr. Living- 
stone,” he said, “in which he says the reading 
of your uncle’s will has been postponed to the 
twenty-second, on account of the absence of some 
of the parties interested. Mr. Livingstone request- 
ed of me, Mr. McGregor, to bring you to see him, 
when you arrived. So if you are not otherwise 
engaged, 1 shall be ready to accompany you in a 


DEAD BROKE. 


145 


few minutes. Have you seen to-day’s Herald? 
You will find the morning papers on that table; 
just take a seat, and I shall be at your disposal in 
a short time.” 

Robert did as requested. Mr. Marsh’s pen scraped 
along the legal cap, and the ofiice clock gave forth 
its monotonous tick, tick. 

After a little, Mr. Marsh laid down his pen, went 
into another room to change his coat, took his hat 
from off the rack, got his natty cane, and drawing 
on his gloves, announced to Robert that he was 
“ at his service.” 

“ Mr. Livingstone’s bank is but a short distance 
from here, on Broadway,” said Mr. Marsh, as they 
left the office. 

“ He is a banker, then,” said Robert. 

“ Yes ; did you not know that ? The head of the 
Livingstone bank, one of the oldest banks in the 
country.” 

As they walked along, Robert could not help 
contrasting his appearance with that of the dapper 
lawyer beside him ; for even two days’ journey had 
made visible in his clothes some little darns that 
poor Lucy had so ingeniously concealed. “We 
well represent,” he thought, “the poor client and 
his lawyer;” and so sensitive did this thought make 
him, that he imagined the people who passed them, 
were saying the same thing. It was then with 
somewhat of a dejected air that he went by the 
long counter of the bank, with its tempting piles 
of gold, silver and bills — behind wire netting — and 
13 


146 


DEAD BROKE. 


entered with the lawyer Mr. Livingstone’s private 
office. 

The latter, a most pleasing, venerable looking 
old gentleman, shook hands with Robert, cordially, 
and after asking a few questions as to his journey, 
he said: 

“ Has Mr. Marsh told you of the little delay we 
shall be obliged to give you ?” 

‘‘ Yes, sir,” replied Robert. 

“ This is how the matter stands, Mr. McGregor,” 
continued the banker. “ Your uncle always trans- 
acted his banking business with us ; although know- 
ing him for years, our acquaintance was merely a 
business one. He has left a large amount of prop- 
erty to different institutions in this city, and Mr. 
Featherstone, a trustee of one of them, has written 
to me, to say that he will not be in town until the 
twenty-first, therefore I have changed the time to 
the twenty-second. Your uncle named me in his 
will as executor ; beyond this trust I am not inter- 
ested, not at all, personally. This, of course, is 
not your first visit to New York?” 

‘‘ Indeed it is,” answered Robert. 

“ Oh, then, we are only giving you a little time 
to look round you. Will you do me the favor of 
spending the evening with me at my country place. 
I will be happy to drive you out after bank hours.” 

‘•I thank you, sir,” replied Robert, “but you 
must excuse me.” 

“ I regret it. Well, then, come in to see me often 
while you are in town, and on the twenty-second 


DEAD BROKE. 


147 


we shall meet at our friend Marsh’s office, when 
I trust this business shall turn out satisfactorily to 
you.” 

While Mr. Livingstone was conversing with Rob- 
ert, his clear, blue eyes were studying with interest 
the appearance and features of the latter, and when 
his visitors left the bank, the banker stroked his 
chin thoughtfully, as he said : 

“ Poor fellow, he looks as if his legacy will not 
come amiss to him ; I hope it may be a good one.” 

Robert left Mr. Marsh at the door of his office, 
and then returned to his hotel, to write to Lucie. 

No one,” he wrote, “ has given me a hint of the 
amount of fortune coming to us; but I suppose my 
uncle died very rich, for Mr. Livingstone told me he 
has left large sums to public institutions. This de- 
lay will make a great inroad upon my slender purse, 
and I want to be home with my darlings on Christ- 
mas day. So if there is to be any delay in settling 
my legacy, I shall ask Mr. Livingstone to act for me. 
I think he would do so ; you would like his ap- 
pearance very much. He is a most kind-hearted 
looking old gentleman.” 

Robert took his letter to the post office, and then 
strolled about the streets. He had no one to call 
on ; did not know one person in that big city, but the 
two gentlemen he had met since his arrival ; for as 
he knew before he left home, Jenkins and his wife 
were in New Orleans, the former, as usual, on the 
eve of making a large fortune. 

Very depressing in its effects is a large city to a 


148 


D^AD BROKE. 


stranger with a slim purse ; very depressing, but 
very salutary, is the lesson it gives to “ our well- 
known and respectable fellow-citizen, Alderman 
Brass,” who buys the morning paper, as he gets on 
board the eastern bound train, and reads over, for 
the fifth or sixth time, the complimentary notice of 
his intended visit east, and fully expects the east- 
ern papers to copy it ; but no sooner does he arrive 
in the big city, than an utter extinguisher falls up- 
on his local greatness ; nay, his very identity seems 
to be slipping away from him, and he feels that, if 
he should fall into the river, the heading of the east- 
ern item, announcing the accident, would read : 
‘‘ The body of an unknown man found in the North 
Kiver.” To be sure, as likely as not, on his return 
home, a brass band will blow all the old, nauseous, 
petty vanity back into him, and thus obliterate the 
lesson. 

Robert, being the most anxious, was the first to 
arrive at Mr. Marsh’s office, on the twenty-second. 

“ You are early, Mr. McGregor,” remarked the 
lawyer, as he shook hands with him. “ The grave 
and reverend signors who represent the institutions 
to which your uncle has left bequests, will not be 
here for some time yet. Sit down and make your- 
self at home. There are newspapers if you wish 
to look them over.” 

Robert took one up and read a whole leader 
through, without understanding one sentence ; he 
might as well be reading a language he did not 
understand. Although outwardly calm he was nerv- 


DEAD BROKE. 


149 


ously excited, now that the time was come for 
the reading of his uncle’s will. 

“Poor Lucie,” he thought, “no doubt she is 
just as anxious and nervous as I am this morning; 
I will send a telegram when I know the amount.” 

One by one, with short intervals intervening be- 
tween each arrival, four gentlemen of sour visages, 
representing officially, gentle charity and Christian 
love, entered the office. Robert was introduced to 
each as the nephew of Mr. William McGregor, and 
was evidently regarded by them as an interloper. 

The first gentleman who arrived took his seat 
close to the wall, and pasted his head against it, and 
the other three ranged themselves alongside, in like 
position. They spoke in monosyllables, cautiously, 
giving side glances at each other. 

There were big sums in this business; the old 
miser had cut up well, and they were not going to 
compromise themselves. 

At length Mr. Livingstone arrived. He bowed 
familiarly to the gentlemen ranged along the wall, 
and shook hands with Robert ; then Mr. Marsh, 
coming in from the front office, the banker handed 
him the will. Robert, feigning a calmness he was 
far from feeling, prepared to listen to the reading 
of it. 

After describing real estate in different parts of 
the city of New York, which the testator died pos- 
sessed of, and enumerating several large sums of 
money in securities, and lodged in bank, the will 
directed that all the real estate should be sold, and 
13 * 


150 


DEAD BROKE. 


the amount realized, together with the sums of 
money already mentioned, and the principal sum of 
ten thousand pounds, invested by the testator in 
the English funds, to be divided in equal shares, 
between four societies named in the will, and which 
were represented by the four gentlemen I have al- 
ready spoken of as being present. 

Then came the part referring to Kobert; it said : 

“ To my nephew, Robert McGregor, of P , in 

the State of Michigan, I leave all the property 
which a certain document directed to him, and now 
lodged in the Livingstone Bank, Broadway, will en- 
title him to.” 

‘‘Here is the document, Mr. McGregor,” said Mr. 
Livingstone, coming forward; “it is sealed, and in 
the exact condition as when lodged with us.” 

“ Before this document is read,” said one of the 
trustees, “ I will ask Mr. Marsh if its contents can 
affect the bequests mentioned.” 

“We cannot know that,” he said, “until we hear 
what the contents are. This may be a will of a 
later date, doing away with all former ones.” 

There was an uneasy movement among the 
trustees. 

“ But it is, doubtless,” continued the lawyer, “ the 
title deed of property not mentioned in the will; it 
feels like parchment ; open the cover, Mr. McGre- 
gor.” 

Thus directed, Robert, with a hand, that despite 
all his effort, trembled, broke the seal ; those pres- 
ent stooped forward, and saw him draw from its 


DEAD BROKE. 


151 


cover an old moth-eaten rabbit skin — William Mc- 
Gregor’s revenge. Surprise, and surprise alone, 
was depicted on every countenance save one, and a 
saucer-eyed man, the trustee of the Society for the 
Conversion of the Heathen, laughed outright. 

Mr. Livingstone gave him a severe look; but the 
heartless laugh was of benefit to Robert at that 
moment of supreme agony. It helped to nerve 
him, as a dash of cold water will keep a person 
from fainting. 

There he stood, pale, rigid, his eyes fixed on the 
cursed, moldering thing before him. 

Mr. Livingstone went over to him. “There is 
some mistake here,” said the banker. 

“There is no mistake,” replied Robert, without 
moving his eyes ; for the whole scene in the woods 
years ago — Indian Dick, Jim, the diabolical look of 
hatred on his uncle’s face — was passing like a pan- 
orama before him. 

Mr. Livingstone spoke again in a kind voice : 
“Can you explain -this, Mr. McGregor? Do you 
wish to do so?” 

For the first time since the opening of the pack- 
age, Robert looked up. 

“Yes,” he replied to Mr. Livingstone, “it is due 
to myself to do so.” In a few words, he related the 
boyish trick played on the miser, and his subse- 
quent anger. “ And this is his revenge,” he con- 
cluded, “ although he could not have calculated how 
full and perfect it would be. I suppose, Mr. Marsh, 
I have no further business here and he moved to- 


152 


DEAD BROKE. 


ward the door. But Mr. Livingstone interposed to 
prevent him. 

“ Do not leave yet, Mr. McGregor, or say that 
you will come home with me ; my carriage is at the 
door.” 

But Robert shook his head and moved on. 

“It is not safe,” said Mr. Livingstone aside to Mr. 
Marsh, “ to allow him to leave in the state of mind 
he is in.” 

Robert overheard the remark, and coming back, 
took the banker’s hand. “ There is no danger, sir,” 
he said, with a sad smile, “ I am neither a coward nor 
an infidel. 1 am going home, Mr. Livingstone, to 
m}^ wife and children.” And before any further re- 
mark could be made, he had left the office. 

“ Confound the whole business,” said Mr. Living- 
stone ; “ I wish the old miser had not brought me in- 
to witnessing his deviltry. I wish, now, I had re- 
fused to act.” 

“ You can withdraw yet,’.’ said the saucer-eyed 
trustee. 

“ I will think of it, sir,” answered the banker, 
gruffly. “ You are a friend to the heathen, I believe. 
Well, I may require your good offices, for, egad, 
after what I have just witnessed, I am half inclined 
to turn heathen myself.” 

The old gentleman was evidently out of humor, 
and walking into the outer office, remained there 
until the four trustees had taken their departure. 

Then he burst in upon Marsh, with, “ I say. 
Marsh, can’t something be done?” 


DEAD BROKE. 


153 


‘‘ How do you mean ?” 

“To smash this will, cheat old McGregor, the 
devil, and the heathen, and give the nephew what 
should be his by right. That infernal old rabbit 
skin, I should think, would convince any jury, of 
insanity.” 

“ I am afraid,” said the lawyer, smiling, “ the tes- 
tator, like Hamlet, had too much ‘method in his 
madness,’ to allow that point to be raised with the 
remotest chance of success. That was, indeed, a 
very distressing scene we have just witnessed.” 

“ Very, very,” said Mr. Livingstone. “ This neph- 
ew, I should think, is not in very good circum- 
stances ; a perfect gentleman, too, in manner. Ho 
you know anything about his affairs ?” 

“ Yes, we had quite a confidential chat the day 
after we were at your bank. His father, of whom 
he speaks with the greatest reverence and love, 
left him quite well off ; but he lost everything by 
the failure of a western bank, and a wild specula- 
tion he was induced to enter into ; swindled, I should 
think,” concluded the lawyer, shrugging his shoul- 
ders. 

“ Ho you know what hotel he is stopping at?” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, if he calls upon you before leaving town 
— he will, I should think — bring him to see me.” 

“ I will do so,” replied the other, as he bowed the 
good-natured banker out of the office. 

When Kobert McGregor left Mr. Marsh's office 
and reached the street, snow, accompanied with 


154 


DEAD BROKE. 


fierce gusts of wind, was falling. Facing the storm, 
he walked on, finding relief in the big snow flakes 
that dashed against his throbbing temples. On, on 
he walked, conscious of a dull sensation in his head 
— not pain, but heaviness, and with but one thought 
passing and repassing through his mind, with the 
regularity of the swaying movement of the pendu- 
lum of a clock — home, home — home, home. On he 
walked, leaving crowds, and streets, and houses be- 
hind him, until he found himself outside the city, 
and his farther advance stopped by the deep snow 
that lay upon the ground. This sudden check re- 
called him, in a measure, to himself, and his mind 
began to free itself from the stupor that the shock 
of a terrible, humiliating disappointment had plung- 
ed it in. Then, through the storm and blinding 
snow, there came to him the sweet, loving face of 
Lucie, and her gentle words, “ As God wills, Kob- 
ert,” seemed to sound in his ears. Clasping his 
hands, and looking upward, he repeated aloud, As 
God wills.” Even as he spoke, the storm com- 
menced to abate, the leaden color of the sky 
changed to a vapory whiteness, the clouds divided, 
and God’s blessed sun looked down upon the earth. 

Retracing his steps, Robert found himself once 
more in the crowded, noisy streets. Carriages, 
filled with beautiful, fashionably-dressed women, 
passed him by, and once his progress was retarded 
by a bevy of gay young girls, that came trooping 
and laughing out of a store. Then he thought of 
his poor wife, anxiously and hopefully awaiting his 


DEAD BROKE. 


155 


return, and the sad disappointment he was about 
to inflict upon her, and in the agony that thought 
brought with it, he clenched his hands. 

Once, too, he thought, as the human stream swept 
by: “What if James Allen should come along 
now?” and for a little while after this, he regarded 
with interest the strange faces passing him by ; but 
soon, with a sigh, he ceased to do so. 

It may seem strange that the disappointment 
which the malice of his uncle had brought to him, 
should have affected Robert McGregor a hundred 
fold greater then the loss of his whole fortune. 

But it must be remembered that when the first 
event occurred, he was young, fresh, strong, un- 
touched, unbroken by care, and that the more we 
have suffered, the less are we able to endure ; the 
bow continually bent, loses its elasticity. 

In his objectless wandering, Robert had turned 
out of Broadway, up Park Row, into Chatham 
Street, and after a little time found himself in the 
midst of a labyrinth of squalid, narrow, ill-lighted 
streets — the Five Points of New York — where mis- 
ery, disease, and crime hold high carnival. 

At the time, this was a dangerous locality, even 
at noonday, and now the lamps were lighted ; but 
the practiced eyes of the professional cut-throats 
and thieves of the Five Points, saw at a glance that 
Robert would be no profitable victim, and one fel- 
low, who was lounging and smoking at the door of 
a low saloon, passing away the time until the hour 
for doing “ a little job ” up town— which might in- 


156 


DEAD BROKE. 


elude murder — should arrive, actually walked half 
a street, to show Robert his way back to Broadway. 
The man felt complimented by the confident way 
the latter had gone up to him and made inquiry. 

Once in Broadway, Robert had no difficulty in 
finding the hotel he was staying at. Tired and 
hungry from his long walk, he eat supper, and then 
retired to his room. Then he counted his money, 
and found, that after paying his hotel bill, he 
would have just enough left to pay his fare home. 

On his way to New York, he had been think- 
ing what kind of a present he should bring to Lucie. 
Well, he could judge best when he looked about 
him ; it should be a stunner, any way, got up, little 
madame, regardless of cost. He was to bring a 
handsome present to Polly Flitters, too ; and then, 
as for Christmas toys, why, he was to bring home a 
whole boxful, not to speak of a doll that could 
shut and open her eyes, just as well as little Mary 
herself, and was to be packed separately. Yes, a 
whole boxful, and the boys had bargained that 
they were to be allowed to smash open the box 
themselves, and take everything out of it. 

During all the journey to New York, those little 
trifles and pleasant anticipations had filled Robert’s 
mind, just as much as more serious thoughts, and 
now he was going home, bringing nothing back 
with him but his sad news. 

He returned to the office of the hotel. Its noise 
and bustle helped to distract him ; men were play- 
ing billiards in the room, and he sat looking on, as 


DEAD BROKE. 


157 


if interested. At length, happily, nature came to 
the relief of weary mind and body, his eyes grew 
heavy, and when he went to bed, he fell into a deep, 
dreamless sleep. 

The next morning, Kobert McGregor left New 
York. Traveling over the Great Western Railroad, 
through Canada, he crossed over to Detroit the fol- 
owing morning. There was a train leaving in half 

an hour, which would pass by P •, but he shrank 

from arriving home in the daytime, so he waited 
for the train that was to leave at four in the after- 
noon, and would arrive at P about eight o’clock 

in the evening ; poor fellow, he was a laggard now, 
going to that home he expected to have hurried to 
with such joy. 

He had some acquaintances in Detroit, but he 
avoided the chance of meeting with any of them, 
and remained in the depot building. Half-past 
three brought another train from New York, and 
the waiting rooms became filled with passengers ; 

so as soon as the train for P backed into the 

depot, Robert went on board and took his seat. 
He could see from the window of the car, passengers 
taking a hurried lunch at the long counter of the 
refreshment room. In a short time, the car in 
which he sat became pretty well filled with pas- 
sengers, and two very loud young men, in dress and 
voice, took the seat on the other side of the car, 
opposite to where Robert sat. 

With an admirable regard for their own comfort, 
they turned over the back of the seat in front of 
14 


158 


DEAD BROKE. 


them, thus making a double compartment, in which 
they placed coats and satchels to such an extent as 
to leave them its exclusive occupation, and as the 
car (if one was to judge by their swagger and loud 
talk,) seemed to belong to them, and the other pas- 
sengers only riding on sufferance, no one was likely 
to dispute their right. 

In fact, this arrangement was somewhat neces- 
sary for the accommodation of a new silk hat, which 
one of the young gentlemen wore on entering the 
car. This, after preparing a place for it, he care- 
fully took off, and set gently down, substituting in 
its place a cap, which he took out of his pocket. 
But, though his head was under his cap now, it was 
evident that his mind — what little he had of it — 
followed his hat; he looked at it, rearranged its 
position, and finally threw a white handkerchief 
lightly over it ; he treated it much as a fond mother 
might treat her child ; but here the similitude ends, 
for he was not likely to spoil that hat, by no means ; 
it was the hat that was likely to spoil him. 

‘‘ All aboard ! ” says the conductor, walking to- 
ward the train. As he passes the door of the re- 
freshment room, he looks in, and repeats, “ All 
aboard !” 

A square-shouldered, warm clad traveler, stand- 
ing at the counter, turns round, catches the con- 
ductor’s eye, and raising a glass in his hand, beck- 
ons to him, but the conductor, smiling, shakes his 
head, and again saying, ‘‘ All aboard !” takes hold of 
the iron rail of one of the cars, preparatory to swing- 


DEAD BROKE. 


159 


ing himself on board, when the train is in motion. 
The traveler drinks the contents of his glass, tosses 
some change on the ^counter, and hurrying out, is 
just in time to get on the platform of the rear car, 
as the train moves off. ‘‘ A touch and go,” he re- 
marks, as he enters, and takes his seat nearest to 
the door. 

Kobert’s seat is about in the middle of the car. 

Daylight is ’fast fading away, and the gas is al- 
ready lighted at the depot, when the train, with its 
ding, dong, dell notice, passes out. 

The train which left on the afternoon of the 24th 
of December, and which was to pass by P , con- 

sisted of an unusual number of passenger cars, to 
accommodate all those hurrying to home and 
friends, to spend the Christmas ; consequently, it 
was fully half an hour after the train had started, 
before the conductor entered the car where Robert 
sat. 

“ Tickets !” 

There was an immediate recourse to pockets and 
pocketbooks. Robert McGregor put his hand into 
his pocket for his ticket, the last of the batch he 
had received in New York; he could not find it; 
confused and frightened, he 'was still looking for it 
when the conductor came up to him, “Ticket!” 

“I fear I have lost my ticket,” said Robert, still 
continuing to search. 

“ Then your fare ; where are you going too ?” 

“I am going to P ,” answered Robert, stand- 

ing up, and searching on the seat and floor of the 


160 


DEAD BROKE. 


car. paid my fare through from New York; 
when I left the ferry-boat I had the ticket, but it is 
gone.” 

“Then your fare, four dollars and seventy-five 
cents, if you please.” 

This conversation had attracted the attention of 
the passengers in Kobert’s near neighborhood, and 
he felt that they were looking at him. A hot glow 
of shame came to his face. 

The conductor, pulling out his memorandum book 
and pencil, repeated, “ Four dollars and seventy- 
five cents, if you please.” 

“ I have no money,” said Robert, in a low voice, 
while beads of perspiration stood out on his fore- 
head ; “ but I paid my fare, I assure you.” 

The scene was now becoming interesting to the 
passengers, particularly so to the two young fellows 
on the opposite side. 

To see a man put off a train on a cold winter’s 
day, is perhaps one of the most lively incidents that 
travelers can meet with. It breaks the monotony 
of a journey, incites to general and cheerful con- 
versation, and tends to increase individual feelings 
of comfort and security. 

As soon as Robert had told the conductor that he 
had no money, one of the two I have already no- 
ticed, said, in a stage whisper to his friend, “ Dead 

BROKE.” 

“Yes,” replied the other, making a slight change 
in the position of the silk hat, “ a dead beat, I 
should say. ’ 


DEAD BROKE. 


161 


The words went piercing into the poor gentle- 
man’s brain ; he rose up, to resent, with a blow, the 
insult given to him, and met cold or amused looks 
on every side. Then the cowardice of poverty 
shoved him back into his seat, for to cause a disturb- 
ance, he remembered, would be to give a coloring of 
truth to the words of the well-dressed blackguard. 

The conductor turned round to where the two 
friends were so comfortably seated, and when they 
handed their tickets to him, he said in no very pleas- 
ant voice, “You must take your traps out of that 
seat; there are persons in the next car standing 
up, and two people can’t occupy four seats then, 
as he passed on, he said to Robert, quietly, “Look 
for your ticket, you may find it by the time I re- 
turn.” 

“ What’s the row up there. Conductor?” asked the 
passenger who had taken his seat at the end of the 
car just as the train was leaving, “what’s up?” 

“ A man who has lost his ticket,” replied the con- 
ductor, “ and has no money to pay his fare. I be- 
lieve his story, but my orders are strict.” 

“ Where is he going to ?” asked the other. 

“To the same place you are going,” answered 
the conductor, looking at the ticket he had just 
taken up. 

“ To P ,” said the passenger ; “ will you stay 

here for a moment. Cap’, until I have a look at 
him ?” 

“Very well,” replied the conductor, sitting down 
in the seat the other had left. 

14 ^ 


162 


DEAD BROKE. 


Walking up to the end of the car, the passenger 
remained there for a moment, and then turned 
round and commenced walking back. 

After the conductor had left him, Robert made 
another fruitless search for his ticket, and then, 
with nerves all unstrung, and feeling that he was 
watched from every side, utterly harrassed and 
beaten down by the misfortunes, great and small, 
which pursued him, he sat with bowed head, wait- 
ing for the return of the railroad officer. 

Nothing could be more dejected and sad than his 
whole appearance as he sat thus, and in striking 
contrast was it to the self-possessed bearing and 
well poised figure of the man approaching. But 
the moment the eyes of the latter rested upon Rob- 
ert, an expression of amazement, of joyful rec- 
ognition, lighted up his face. His lips were parted 
to give utterance to an exclamation of pleasure, but 
with wonderful presence of mind, he checked the 
impulse, in obedience to the thought that came 
almost simultaneously with the recognition. 

“ No,” he thought, as he hurried past, “ he shall 
never know I was witness to his suffering such 
humiliation. What can have happened to bring 
him to this ?” 

When he reached to where the conductor was, 
he caught his arm, and the latter felt that every 
nerve in the body of the man who held him, was 
quivering with excitement. 

“ Cap’,” he whispered to the officer, “ I have trav- 
eled three thousand miles to eat my Christmas din- 


DEAD BROKE. 


163 


ner with that man. Here, take the fare,” and he 
pulled a handful of gold out of his pocket. “ And 
Cap’, you’re a good fellow, jind will make a kind of 
apology to him; tell him it-s al|,right, just to make 
him feel good, won’t yoli^ Cap^’ 

a Why don’t you go and speak to him yourself, 
sir ?” 

“ Because I don’t wish him to know that I saw 
him put to shame in this way ; he’s proud and sensi- 
tive, or was, for 1 have been away in California, 
and we have not met for years, until I recognized 
him this moment. Oh, don’t mind the change ; but 
just tell him out loud, so that all those fellows may 
hear you, that it’s all right, or something of the 
kind.” 

The conductor gave him a pleasant nod, and pass- 
ed along. Just as he got near Robert, he stooped, 
and pretended to pick up a ticket. 

Here is the ticket, after all,” he said, ‘‘ I am 
sorry, sir, you should have such bother,” and he put 
a check in the band of Robert’s hat. 

With a great sigh of relief the latter looked up. 

‘‘ Thank you,” he said, “ you have been very kind 
and the conductor passed on, out of the car, to tell 
the mail agent and baggage-man the strange inci- 
dent he had just witnessed, and the three philoso- 
ptiers — for all those who are in continual intercourse 
with the traveling public, become philosophical, to 
a certain extent, not without cause — confessed that 
this matter “beat them.” 

“ I have been away in California.” These were 


164 


DEAD BROKE. 


his words. Yes, it was James Allen, brave, true, 
energetic, long-wished for Jim himself, come back 
to his friend, sitting in the same car with him, and 
the latter did not k|iow it. 

James, too, was chl^h'^^, but for the better. He 
had grown more robust, and the promise that his 
youth had given of great strength, was now splen- 
didly developed in his chest and limbs. His hair 
had grown darker and was cut quite short, and he 
wore a heavy beard ; but there were two features 
unchanged by which he could be easily recognized, 
his clear grey eyes and turned up nose. 

When the conductor left him, James Allen 
changed his position slightly, so that he could keep 
Kobert well in view. 

“ Oh, my poor Robert,” he murmured to himself, 
“ what misfortune is it that has overtaken you ; how 
changed, how poverty stricken he is. Oh, the 
wicked folly of my not writing to know how mat- 
ters stood with him ; but I never could imagine 
that in money affairs he would want my help. It’s 
hard to be so near him and not clasp my arms 
around him, but it is for his sake I torture myself. 
And is this the wslj we meet. Is this the meeting 
I have looked forward to with such longings. No 
matter, we meet now, not to part again, and if 
money is his only trouble, I can set that all right. 
He never squandered the means his father left to 
him; some .villain or villains must have swindled 
him.” 

All this and more he said in broken snatches, 


DEAD BROKE. 


165 


sometimes burying his face in his hands, and then 
again peering into the gloom where Robert sat, 
while his broad chest rose and fell with the emo- 
tion he struggled with. 

When the conductor again came round, James 
shook his hand warmly. 

“ You are a first rate fellow. Cap’,” he said, “ the 
next time I travel with you into Detroit, we must 
have a glass of wine together, and get better ac- 
quainted. And now I want you to do me another 
little favor.” 

“What is it?” asked the conductor, laughing. 
“Do you want to pay any one else’s fare?” 

“No ; but is the American Hotel still in existence 
at P ?” 

“ Yes, a ’bus from it meets this train.” 

“ Well, will you take these checks, and tell the 

baggage-master at P to send my baggage to 

the American ; I will walk there myself, and do 
not want to be detained at the depot.” 

The conductor promised to do so, and after chat- 
ting for a few minutes with his new acquaintance, 
again left him to his own thoughts. 

When the train reached P , three or four pas- 

sengers, including Robert, rose to leave the car; as 
they passed out of the door, Robert last, James 
Allen followed at a little distance. 

Robert made no stay on the platform, but hur- 
ried on through the crowd, James following after, 
but at a distance, to prevent his being noticed by 
the former, who walked straight on for some time. 


166 


DEAD BROKE. 


and then turned to the right. James’ heart gave a 
throb of joy. 

“He has the cottage yet,” he said ; “ he is going 
there, thank God.” 

As Robert McGregor neared his home, his steps 
grew weary and slow, and twice he stopped alto- 
gether, and put his hand up to his head. 

Each time he did so, James seemed on the point 
of rushing forward, but checked himself in time, to 
see Robert resume his slow walk ; but when a turn 
brought Inverness Cottage full in sight, the latter’s 
slow walk was changed almost into a run. 

James, now terribly excited, hurried after, still 
faster, and lessening the distance between them. 

When Robert reached the gate of the cottage, 
James drew up beneath the shadow of a tree. He 
saw his friend enter at the gate, and pass up the 
gravel walk ; then the hall door opened, a woman 
came running down to meet him, and a woman’s 
arms were flung lovingly around his neck. 

The watcher clasped his hands in joy. 

“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, thank God!” he 
murmured ; “ here is nothing that I cannot set 
right,” and he hurried off in an opposite direction. 

Lucie sat on a low stool at her husband’s feet, 
and holding his hands between both her own, 
listened to the recital of his late disappointment. 
Every now and then she pressed the hands she 
held, or filled up the pauses in his sad story, with 
words of endearment and encouragement. But 
when he came to speak of his adventure in the 


DEAD BROKE. 


167 


railroad car, and in a husky, broken voice, told of 
the shame, humiliation, and insult he had been 
forced to endure, she hid her face for a moment, 
and pressing her forehead down upon the hand that 
rested upon his knees, drove back the tears vali- 
antly. 

From the moment of her husband’s return, she 
had noticed what a terrible change the last few 
days had wrought in him. His face was haggard, 
pale and flushed by turns, and the dull sadness of 
his eyes sometimes gave place to a wild look. She 
felt that she required all her strength for both now, 
and dare not give way to the luxury of tears. When 
she raised her head again, Robert was sadly gazing 
at three little stockings that hung down from the 
wall, with some toys and candy arranged under 
each. 

‘‘And this is Christmas eve,” he said. “ Where 
did those things come from, Lucie ?” 

“ Polly Flitters played Santa Claus in your ab- 
sence,” she answered. 

“Have the children been expecting me?” 

“ We did not know whether to expect you or not ; 
at all events, I thought it better to coax them to go 
to bed.” 

“I am glad not to meet the disappointed faces 
of my darlings, to-night,” he said. 

“ Oh, Robert,” she answered, “ the children will 
be just as satisfied with these toys as they would be 
with the ones you promised.” 

“ Promised !” he repeated, starting up, and walk- 


168 


DEAD BROKE. 


ing about the room excitedly. “ Oh, my darlings, 
your poor father should promise nothing but new 
misfortunes, every day ; they follow him, haunt 
him, crush him ; why can’t they — ” 

He did not finish the sentence, for Lucie’s arm 
went twining round his waist. With gentle force, 
she got him to sit down again, and taking her old 
place, looked up into his face. 

‘‘Yes, Robert,” she said, in a low, sweet voice, 
“ this is Christmas Eve, the eve of the ‘day Christ 
came on earth to suffer for us. And what are our 
sufferings to his? He, the sinless one, buffeted, 
spit upon, and nailed to a cross between two 
thieves.” Then kneeling on the stool, she nestled 
her head against his breast, still looking up into his 
eyes. 

“Robert, my own, my darling, my love,” she 
murmured. 

If there was an evil spirit hovering there, it fled 
before the light of a pure, holy love, stronger 
than it. 

Robert rose, holding Lucie, still clinging to his 
breast. 

“ My sweet wife,” he whispered, “ you have saved 

me ; listen to the prayer I learned from your lips 

‘ as God wills.’ ” 

At that moment the door bell rang. Each look- 
ed at the other. 

“Lucie,” said Robert, “I am not able to see 
any one to night.” 

“ It is likely only some one with a message from 


DEAD BROKE. 


169 


Polly Flitters,” she answered. “ She left here 
about twenty minutes before you came, and said 
there was some little toy she had forgotten, and 
would send over.” 

So saying, she left Robert standing in the parlor, 
and went to the door. 

When she opened it, a man, muffled up to the 
eyes, handed her a package and letter, saying, as 
he did so, “For Mr. McGregor,” and before she 
could ask a question, he was gone. 

Lucie returned to her husband. “A man hand- 
ed me these for you, Robert, and then hurried off,” 
she said. 

In handing the package — which was somewhat 
weighty — and letter to Robert, the former fell, 
the paper burst open, and a lot of gold coins rolled 
out upon the floor. Robert started, and stooping, 
picked up a gold eagle. 

“ What is this ?” he said, excitedly. “ Gold. Oh, 
Lucie, there is some mistake here. Gather up this 
money, and put it safely by. It is not for us, 
Lucie. How unfortunate the package should fall 
and open.” 

Lucie was equally surprised, but more self-pos- 
sessed. 

“ The mistake is not ours, Robert,” she said. “ At 
all events, (taking it from his hand,) this letter is 
for you; it is directed, Robert McGregor; open it, 
Robert.” 

Taking the letter hastily from her hand, Robert 
tore open the envelope. When he read the first 
15 


170 


DEAD BROKE. 


line, he hastily looked down at the signature. Then 
uttering a cry of joy, so loud that he awoke the 
two little boys sleeping in the room above, he 
caught Lucie up, and whirled her round the room. 

For a moment she thought that his senses had 
forsaken him ; but he reassured her by exclaiming, 
“ Lucie — Lucie, Jim has returned, Jim is alive, Jim 
has returned.” 

Then — each holding one side of th^ paper — 
Robert read, breaking in upon every sentence with 
some ejaculation of surprise or joy: 

“ Old fellow : I have come back safe and sound, 
warranted in wind and limb. I thought to be with 
you before this time, but have been delayed, so I 
send you this letter by a friend, and will follow, 
myself, soon after ; old boy, look out for me at any 
time. 

“ To show you that it is myself, and not my ghost, 
that has arrived, I send you the two hundred dol- 
lars that you lent me when I was leaving; but not 
the interest, Robert. Dear Robert, it will take a 
lifetime to pay that, old boy. Dear old fellow, we 
must never part again when we meet. Jim.” 

That was all ; but it was enough to change a 
house of mourning into one of joy ; enough to bring 
the old light to Robert’s eyes, and the courage to 
his heart. With Jim at his back, he felt strong 
enough to take a new wrestle with the world, and 
trip up the heels of slippery fortune. And Lucie, 
poor Lucie, who had so bravely borne up against 
crushing sorrow, now wept ; but they were tears of 
joy. 


DEAD BROKE. 


171 


Soon two new actors, not noticed for some time, 
came upon the scene. Standing in the doorway, in 
their long night dresses, were the two little boys, 
Robert and James, endeavoring to crook the sleep 
out of their eyes, and when they succeeded in this, 
they simultaneously rushed forward, calling out. 
Papa ! papa ! papa !” Robert snatched them up 
in his arms, one at a time, and curveted round 
the room with them, much as he did with Lucie. 
Then their eyes fell upon the bright gold pieces 
their mother was picking up off the floor, and 
James, clapping his hands, asked if Santa Claus 
had brought all that money. 

‘‘Yes, James,” answered ,his father, laughing. 
“ Santa Claus, our own special Santa Claus, brought 
it all. A new name for Jim, Lucie ; we must give 
it to him. Listen to the way he begins his letter : 
‘ Old fellow, I have come back safe and sound,’ so 
like Jim, I think I hear him saying it. ‘ Old boy, 
look out for me at any time.’ Why, Lucie, he may 
be here to-morrow. Would not that be grand? 
Christmas day and all. Dear old Jim and then, 
for the twentieth time, he re-read James Allen’s 
letter. 

Then Lucie, drawing the two children to her, 
knelt down, and lifting up her beautiful face, still 
wet with tears, said, “Heavenly Father, we thank 
thee that thou hast permitted us to see thee in the 
darkness and in the storm ; and now, we bless thee 
in the sunlight.” 

The children were soon back again to the toys 


172 


DEAD BROKE. 


they had found arranged under their stockings, and 
Robert told them to take down their own but not 
to touch Mary’s. Climbing up on chairs, they did 
so, and out rolled from each a bright gold coin. 
Santa Claus was behaving splendidly this Christmas. 

“You must tidy up a room for James, Lucie,” 
said Robert ; “ he will see a great change and 
even in his new-found happiness a shade of sad- 
ness came to his face. 

The hours passed unheeded by, as husband and 
wife talked over the return of the long absent 
friend — the one, of all earth, that Robert’s weary 
spirit had ever yearned for — and with the children, 
the toys had “ murdered sleep,” so that the bonny 
chimes of Christmas were ringing before the happy 
little household retired for the night. 

Robert was up bright and early the next morn- 
ing, and burst in upon the Flitters as they sat at 
breakfast, his face all aglow with happiness. 

“ A merry Christmas,” he said, shaking hands all 
around. 

“Welcome back,” said Mr. Flitters, giving him a 
hearty shake. “ How much ?” 

In the joy of James’ return, Robert had actually 
ceased to think o( his late disappointment, and for 
a second did not comprehend the question ; then 
remembering, he said, “ Oh, nothing, not one cent, 
Mr. Flitters. It is not of that I am come to tell you; 
but James Allen, the dear friend that you heard us 
speaking about so much, Polly, has come back 
from California.” 


DEAD BROKE. 


173 


It was now that Mrs. Flitters showed herself to be 
the able woman she really was. Robert’s friend had 
returned from California, with a large fortune doubt- 
less, and Polly was, as yet, unprovided for. Ex- 
tending her hand for the second time to Robert, 
Mrs. Flitters said, with her blandest smile, ‘‘ I con- 
gratulate you, Mr. McGregor.” 

But Flitters sat staring at his plate. In his ex- 
perience, money was the best friend a man could 
meet with, and Robert had missed that. 

It is noon — Robert sits at the window fronting the 
street, reading or attempting to read. Suddenly a 
hack pulls right up at the gate, and a man with a 
dark red beard, jumps out upon the sidewalk. In 
a moment Robert is out of the house, and the two 
loving friends, the playmates of childhood and of 
boyhood, are locked in each other’s arms. Rob- 
ert” — “Jim.” Then comes Lucie down the walk. 

“Let me out, you jealous fellow,” says James 
Allen, laughing, and breaking away from Robert, 
“I must and shall kiss your wife,” and taking 
Lucie’s outstretched hands, he imprints a bearded 
kiss upon her cheek. 

“Well,” soliloquizes the hackman, as he turns 
his horses slowly round, “ I’m darned if them 
folks aint glad to see one another.” 

When the first joyous excitement had somewhat 
subsided, how much the friends had to tell each 
other. 

Naturally, the first thing they spoke of, was the 
death of Doctor McGregor. 

15 ^ 


174 


DEAD BROKE. 


“ Here is his present, Robert,” said James, pro- 
ducing the watch that the former had given to him 
from his father, the day that they had parted. “ I 
prize it as I prize every memory of him, every 
word I heard from the lips of the best and noblest 
of men. You remember what he said to me : ‘ Be 

a true man in every thing, James, and you will be 
a gentleman!’ I tell you, Robert, those words have 
been a talisman to me ; I have ever kept them be- 
fore me, and endeavored to live up to them.” 

I do not believe,” replied Robert, “ that any 
one ever came in close contact with him without 
being benefited by it.” 

‘‘I must tell you,” said James, “that I heard of 
your father’s death, and of your marriage, some six 
months after the latter took place. I heard of both 
events from a son of Weasel’s, who came out to 
California. You remember little Weasel and his 
Sunday lectures, and what disrespectful scamps we 
were.” 

And James laughed so heartily that the children 
joined in full chorus. 

“ I did not know,” said Robert, “ that a son of 
Weasel’s went to California.” 

“ Oh, yes,” replied James. “ And a very decent 
kind of young fellow he is, and doing well. Al- 
though I had adhered to my foolish resolve of not 
writing, 1 had kept pretty good track of you,” he 
continued, “until I heard of your marriage with 
m}^ old flame, Lucie, here. Oh, you need not blush, 
madam, you jilted me in my tender years, and 


DEAD BROKE. 


175 


that’s all about it,” and James gave another of his 
contagious laughs. 

“ Well,” he continued, “ when I heard of your mar- 
riage, I just said to myself, ‘they are settled down 
now, so I need give myself no more trouble 
about them, but keep steady at work, until I have 
enough to return with.’ Since I came into Michi- 
gan, Robert, I heard, by chance, enough to make 
me know that in not writing to you I have acted 
far more than foolishly^ — I have acted badly. But, 
thank God, I find you in your old home, with your 
wife and children around you, and here is my name- 
sake, Jim, a sturdy evidence, on two stout legs of 
his own, to show that you had not forgotten your 
careless friend. Come, now, tell me all about your- 
self, and then Til commence my narrative in the 
most apj)roved style — ‘My name is Norval,’ and so 
forth.” 

Thus James rattled away, until he had learned 
from Robert all the events affecting the latter, 
which had transpired, including his late visit to 
New York, and the disappointment it resulted in. 

And now James had cause to congratulate him- 
self on understanding his friend’s sensitive nature 
so well as to have refrained from disclosing his 
presence to Robert on board the train, for the pain- 
ful incident which James had witnessed in the rail- 
road car, Robert never alluded to. 

“It makes one’s flesh creep,” said James, “to 
think of that old man, carrying his hatred for so 
many years locked up in his own breast, and then. 


176 


DEAD BROKE. 


out of the very grave, as it were, dealing his re- 
vengeful blow. I should have been with you, Kob- 
ert, to take my share, for you remember, the 
bogus fur trade that led to all this, was my bright 
plan.” 

‘‘ It was the plan of two foolish little boys, James,” 
answered Kobert; “but let us not speak any more 
of this man, or think of him, if we can help it.” 

“ That’s right,” said his friend, “ and after all, he 
has only wounded skin deep.” 

“The wound was deeper at the time than even 
he could have anticipated,” replied Robert ; “ but 
the sight of you, old fellow, has healed it up,” 
and for the twentieth time, since meeting, they 
shook hands. 

Then James commenced giving an account of his 
adventures in California. 

“ Nothing romantic about them, Robert,” he said, 
laughing; “some disappointments, some hard 
knocks, and plenty of honest work, that is all.” 

It would seem, from James’ story, that he had 
no very great sudden streaks of luck, either good 
or bad, during his stay in California. He worked 
constantly in the mines, never going to San Fran- 
cisco, unless on business, and then neither exchang- 
ing gold dust for bad whiskey, or fighting the tiger, 
and after twelve years, found himself worth some 
thirty thousand dollars. 

“A big sum for me,” he said, “sol thought I 
would come back and pitch my tent beside you, 
Robert. I find it hard to forgive myself for not 


DEAD BROKE. 177 

corresponding with you, and you must help me to 
do so.” 

“ How, James ?” . 

“ By letting me do what you would do, were you in 
my place, Robert. By letting me show that I am 
not forgetful of the compact of friendship we made, 
long ago, under Prince Charlie’s tree. I have come 
to live with you, to share with you ; you must not 
drive me away.” 

“No, no,’' replied Robert, “1 have longed too 
much for you to do that.” 

“ Thank you, thank you, old fellow. Now I have 
something to propose, but in the first place, it is 
altogether subject to your approval, Mrs. McGre- 
gor, so I will put it in the shape of a question.” 

“ How would you like to go farther west, and 
that Robert and I should take two large tracts of 
government land, and become farmers on a grand 
scale ?” 

Lucie’s face beamed with joy. “ That is the very 
choice I would make,” she said, “ had I the power 
of choosing.” 

“And you, Robert?” asked James. 

“ Oh, James,” he answered, “ I am dazzled with 
the picture of happiness that you have conjured up, 
but — ” 

“ I will have no buts,” interrupted James, “ if they 
refer to money matters ; they are unworthy of 
both of us, Robert. Do you remember what you 
said to me when I was refusing to take the two 
hundred dollars from you ? You waived me off 


178 


DEAD BROKE. 


with, ‘ Kemember, the money question is settled.’ 
Just so. Now the money question is settled, an- 
other arises, Mrs. McGregor — a wife question. I 
certainly do not want to go upon one of those vast 
prairies in Iowa or Minnesota, without a wife, and, 
Lucie, I am strongly under the impression that you 
and Robert, somehow, owe me a wife.” 

Lucie clapped her hands as she replied, laugh- 
ing: 

“ James, I have the dearest little wife for you ; the 
world does not hold a better. Was all the gold in 
California melted into one lump, she would be 
worth it.” 

“ Softly, Lucie,” said James, “ I am afraid you are 
going beyond my figure. Ah, I see how it is, she’s 
homely as old Harry.” 

On the contrary, she is very pretty.” 

“What’s her name?” 

“ Polly Flitters. The Flitters are our nearest 
neighbors, and Polly is my nearest and dearest 
friend.” 

“That last is the best recommendation of all, 
Lucie ; but do not praise her any more, because she 
may refuse me — very likely, indeed; you know I 
am unlucky in love scrapes, and in that case I 
don’t want to fret too much.” 

What a happy day was this at Inverness Cot- 
tage. One of those days to be marked with a 
white stone in life’s pilgrimage, and long after the 
pleasant prattle of the children was hushed in 
sleep, Lucie, Robert and James, loath to part, re- 


DEAD BROKE. 


179 


mained conversing in the parlor. Janies had 
brought the conversation back to his farming 
scheme, and Kobert had consented to borrow five 
thousand dollars from him ; it was also settled that 
early the following spring the two friends should 
go west, to hunt up a location. 

It was near twelve o’clock when Lucie left the 
parlor to get a bedroom lamp, and Robert and 
James, standing by the stove, were still eagerly 
conversing, when they heard the startling cry of 
fire. Opening the door quickly. Flitters was seen 
rushing across the street, bare-headed, and with 
nothing on but his drawers and shirt, while at every 
step he bellowed, “ Fire ! fire !” At the same instant, 
from the lower windows of his house, the flames 
came bursting out. 

Then upon the night air there rose a woman’s 
piercing cry, and two white forms were seen at an 
upper window, Polly Flitters with her arm around 
her mother, who still continued to scream and 
gesticulate wildly. 

My wife, my child ! ” exclaimed Flitters, catch- 
ing Robert’s arm, “ oh, save them, save them ! ” 

James Allen was about rushing across the street, 
when Robert called to him, “ Stay by me, James,” 
he said, “and together we will be able to save 
them.” 

Then he ran round to the side of the cottage, and 
was back in a minute with a short ladder on his 
shoulder and an ax in his hand. Handing the lat- 
ter to James, they hurried across to the burning 


180 


DEAD BROKE. 


house. ‘‘Oh, Robert,” said James, as they ran 
along, “ that ladder is too short.” 

“ Not for the use we will put it to,” answered the 
other. “ Keep close to me ; if we separate, they are 
lost.” 

The roof of Mr. Flitters’ kitchen was much lower 
than that of the main building, and attached to the 
kitchen was a wood-shed with a still lower roof. To 
this point Robert made. The moment he placed 
the ladder against the shed, James comprehended 
his plan of action. Just as they reached the roof 
of the shed, and were about to draw up the ladder. 
Flitters appeared. Telling him to hurry back to 
the street and call out to those at the window to 
keep up their courage, for help was at hand, Robert 
and James mounted by the ladder to the kitchen 
roof, and from thence to the roof of the main build- 
ing. Drawing up the ladder again after them, Rob- 
ert, followed by James, made for where he knew the 
skylight was situated. It was shut, but with two 
blows of the ax, James smashed it in, and putting 
the ladder through the aperture thus made, the 
two leaped down and found themselves in the gar- 
ret of the burning house. Then, Robert leading, 
they rushed down into the room at the window of 
which Mrs. Flitters and Polly still remained. The 
boards burned under their feet as they crossed the 
room. “ Save my mother!” exclaimed poor Polly, 
and James obeyed her, by catching Polly herself 
up in his arms, while the heavier burden fell upon 
Robert’s shoulders. Hurrying away, they had but 


DEAD BROKE. 


181 


reached the garret, when the floor of the room they 
had just left, fell in. There was not a moment to 
lose. Bearing Polly on one arm as if she was but 
a feather’s weight, James, who required no guid- 
ance now, ran up the ladder to the roof, but Rob- 
ert, burdened with Mrs. Flitters, could not ascend 
in any such graceful style, so he even carried her 
as the “ pious JEneas ” bore his father from the 
ruins of Troy. Descending by the same way they 
had ascended, Robert and James appeared in the 
street, to receive the lusty cheers of those that the 
Are had attracted to the spot, and hurrying across 
to the cottage, James consigned the now fainting 
form of Polly to Lucie’s outstretched arms, while 
Mrs. Flitters, sliding from Robert’s back, had a good, 
comfortable faint on the sofa, from which she was 
aroused by Flitters flinging nearly half a pail of 
cold water over her — the first and last time he ever 
took such a liberty with that able woman. 

“ The servants, Mr. Flitters ?” cried Robert, hurry- 
ing in from the street, to which he had returned, 
after depositing Mrs. Flitters on the sofa. 

‘‘ They are safe,” replied Mr. Flitters. The two 
girls went to spend the Christmas with some 
friends, and are not to return until morning.” 

“ Then no matter about the house,” said Robert. 
“ Thank God, all are safe.” 

Richard Flitters, Jun., was at this time away at 
a boarding school, so that when the two servant girls 
were accounted for, Robert was satisfied of the 
safety of all the inmates. 

16 


182 


DEAD BROKE. 


“ The house is fully insured, and so is the furni- 
ture,” said Flitters. Of course they were ; all the 
elements combined could not injure Flitters in 
money matters. 

Lucie gave up her own room to Mrs. Flitters and 
Polly, rolled them up in warm blankets, and ad- 
ministered to them strong tea, while Robert restored 
the ruddy color to Flitters’ cheek by a generous 
bumper of hot-stuff, which the little man drank, sit- 
ting at the stove, with a red-striped table-cover 
thrown over his shoulders, like a Roman toga. In- 
deed, so exhilarating was the effect of the hot-stuff 
on the little man, that it made him quite jolly, and 
somewhat reckless ; he slapped Robert and James 
frequently on the back, and vowed that they were 
the best and bravest fellows in the world,” and 
when he was passing, on his way to bed, the room 
in which Mrs. Flitters and Polly were, he knocked 
at the door loudly with his knuckles, exclaiming as 
he did so; 

‘‘ Good-night, old woman — good-night, Polly.” 

Mrs. Flitters could scarcely believe her ears ; the 
idea of his addressing her in vulgar slang. He did 
so once before, after returning from a farewell sup- 
per, given to him by some of his Bowery friends, be- 
fore leaving New York. 

“Where are you going to, sir?” she asked, in 
muffled sternness, from beneath the blankets. 

“ Hie — guess Jim Allen and I are — hie — to bunk 
together,” answered Flitters. 

“ Polly,” said Mrs. Flitters, in suppressed wrath. 


DEAD BROKE. 


183 


‘^as .I am a suffering woman, your father is vul- 
garly intoxicated. Did you hear his low language, 
and did you hear him calling Mr, Allen — the gentle- 
man who saved your life, my child, a most roman- 
tic incident, which might lead to a great deal — 
calling him Jim. Why don’t you answer me, 
Polly?” 

But Polly could not answer, for she had the bed- 
clothes over her head, and was shaking with laugh- 
ter. 

Flitters, notwithstanding the effects of the strong 
bumper, would have been the first up in the house 
next morning, but that he had to wait in bed un- 
til Robert brought him some clothes to wear. 
Robert being rather tall, and Flitters decidedly short, 
the garments provided were but a poor fit. The 
coat, a swallow-tail, faded blue, was entirely too 
long in the waist and sleeves ; it would have im- 
proved the fit of the pants, to have cut ofi* about 
half a foot in the length, and but one button of the 
vest could be made to close. But Flitters was in 
the best of good humor, and laughed heartily with 
Robert, as the latter assisted him in his toilet. 

Lucie and James Allen were already in the break- 
fast room when Polly entered. 

The wardrobe which Mrs. McGregor had left at 
her disposal was neither very extensive, new, or 
fashionable ; but, like Lucie herself, Polly was one 
of those tidy little bodies that lend a charm to what 
they wear, instead of having to borrow from the 
taste of the dressmaker, and with the effect of last 


184 


DEAD BROKE. 


night’s fright still robbing her cheeks of their roses, 
she never looked more interesting. 

“ Oh, Polly, love !” exclaimed Lucie, going for- 
ward to meet her. ‘‘This is Mr. James Allen, 
Polly. He was very anxious yesterday to make 
your acquaintance, and I promised to introduce 
him ; but, if I am not mistaken, somebody put some 
other body into my arms last night; so I conclude 
that the introduction has already taken place.” 

All the roses were n©w back into Polly’s cheeks, 
but, nevertheless, Lucie’s playful bantering (“ most 
wicked of her,” Polly said afterwards,) could not 
prevent her from expressing, with grateful warmth, 
her thanks to James Allen. 

“I consider myself the luckiest fellow in the 
world. Miss Flitters,” he replied, “ in being able to 
do you a service ; but Robert deserves most of the 
praise. But for his coolness and presence of mind, 
I shudder to think what might have happened. 
Did you make any attempt to go down stairs?” 

“ Yes, but the flames and smoke drove us back, 
and I did not know until, thanks to you, I was safe 
in the house here, but that poor papa, who slept 
down stairs, was lost.” 

And again the pretty face grew pale, and the 
young girl shivered. 

“ Oh, you must not think any more about the 
danger you have all so happily escaped, Miss Flit- 
ters,” said James. “All’s well that ends well, you 
know.” 

“Here is Mrs. McGregor,” he continued, turning 


DEAD BROKE, 


185 


round ; but Lucie had left the room, and, would you 
believe it, Jim then and there commenced to make 
love to Polly Flitters — to be sure, he had fallen in 
love the night before, when her young, frightened 
heart was beating wildly against his own — and Pol- 
ly — well, no, I won’t tell any stories of Polly just 
now. Let the poor little thing first recover from 
her fright, with Cupid — cunning urchin, disguised 
as gratitude — attending physician. 

Before going down to breakfast, Flitters paid a 
visit to Mrs. Flitters, who still remained in bed. • 
With a vague remembrance of his jolly “ good- 
night” a few hours before, and consequently some 
misgivings as to his reception, he entered the room ; 
but his friend, Mrs. McGregor, had given such a 
highly colored account of his daring attempt to get 
upon the roof of the burning house, being only pre- 
vented by Robert’s drawing up the ladder, and of 
his frantic grief while the danger lasted, that his 
wife’s heart was softened toward him, and in this 
mood she received him. 

How do you feel, my dear,” said Flitters, stoop- 
ing down and kissing her. 

‘‘ Shattered, Flitters,” she replied, “ shattered. 
We have been a long time together, Richard.” 

“ And will be, I hope, my dear,” said Flitters. 

1 don’t know, Flitters ; a man can bear a great 
deal, (so Flitters often thought,) but when a woman, 
with her finer organization, gets shattered — ah, 
dear me ! Polly would take care of you. Flitters, if 
I was gone.” 

16 ^ 


186 


DEAD BROKE. 


“ Why, how you talk, Bessy. There is nothing 
the matter with you or any of us, thank God, but a 
big fright. They are all merry and laughing below ; 
get up and join them.” 

“ How can I get up. Flitters,” she answered, 
“ without any clothes? My beautiful wardrobe is 
all burned.” 

Never mind the clothes,” said her husband, I 
will sign a cheeky and you can fill it up, and get- all 
you want for yourself and Polly.” 

‘‘ You are a good creature. Flitters,” she replied. 
Then with animation, which showed that all the 
shattering was completely forgotten, she added, 
‘‘ But I must get some things immediately made for 
Polly and myself.” And she forthwith commenced 
to give her husband instructions, which set about a 
dozen dressmakers and sewing girls busy at work 
half an hour after Flitters had eaten his breakfast 
and gone down town. 

As he trotted down the garden walk, with the 
legs of the long pants and sleeves of the blue coat 
tucked up, with a hat entirely too large for him, 
and the coat tails almost touching the ground, he 
bore a most ludicrous resemblance to the “ Art- 
ful Dodger,” when Oliver Twist first made that 
young gentleman’s acquaintance ; but when Flit- 
ters reached the gate and turned round to wave his 
hand to his friends at the hall door, his honest, 
pleasant face did away with the resemblance alto- 
gether. 

So well did Mr. Flitters perform his wife’s com- 


DEAD BROKE. 


187 


missions, that she was enabled to appear, in excel- 
lent humor, at the supper table that evening. With 
the utmost warmth and sincerity, she thanked Rob- 
ert and James for their brave rescue of herself and 
her daughter. In fact, the shock she had received 
(this looking at death right between the eyes) had 
a very beneficial, lasting effect on Mrs. Flitters. 
Robert McGregor used to say • afterwards, ‘Ghat 
she had been tried in fire, and came forth puri- 
fied.’' 

So with Robert himself. He could not but feel 
a proper pride in the part he had acted during the 
fire. Every one was praising him, and the “ Trump- 
et of Liberty” sounded his fame through the length 
and breadth of the land. All this, together with 
the release from harassing thoughts, and above 
all^ the companionship of James — his back, as he 
called him — helped to restore vigor and elasticity 
to his mind and body, and, as Lucie expressed it, 
“ he was coming back to his old self more and 
more every day.” 

But good fortune, which had now taken up the 
running, seemed determined not to stop until it 
had distanced, and left completely out of sight, the 
misfortunes which had so long pursued Robert Mc- 
Gregor. 

The day after the fire, Mr. Flitters and his family 
went to board at a hotel, until he could provide 
himself with a house, and James Allen was a con- 
stant visitor of their’s. Whether he went to get 
lessons in refined manners from Mrs. Flitters, or to 


188 


DEAD BROKE. 


study “ the art of love” with Polly, I leave for the 
present to be guessed at. • 

Every day, too, on her waj^ to the post office, 
Lucie called. 

Why did Mrs. McGregor insist on going herself 
every day to the post office ? Ah, that was Lucie’s 
little secret, and it had- but such a tiny hope to 
buoy it up, that she did not reveal it to any one. 

Robert, on his return from New York, had spoken 
so well of Mr. Livingstone, and described him as 
such a kind, benevolent old gentleman, oue, too, 
who evidently sympathized with him, that Lucie 
had got it fixed somehow in her head, that this 
good banker, as executor to William McGregor’s 
will, might find some way to help Robert. If a let- 
ter with good news should come, she would have 
the joy of handing it to Robert. 

But as week after week went by, her hope grew 
less and less, and she resolved to get rid of the idea 
altogether, when, lo ! just as she made her last call 
at the post office, a letter, with the address of the 
Livingstone bank printed on the outside, was placed 
in her hand. Lucie never knew how she got home 
that day. Polly Flitters used to say that Lucie 
certainly flew by the windows of the hotel ; but 
home she was, standing before Robert and James, 
flushed and panting, with the letter in her hand ; 
she held it forth to Robert, without speaking, and 
opening the envelope, he read: 

“Dear Sir: — I rejoice that I have good news to 
tell you. I find that William McGregor, for many 


DEAD BROKE. 


189 


years before his death, did not draw the interest on 
the ten thousand pounds which he had in the Eng- 
lish funds. 

‘‘This interest, with compound interest, amounts 
to the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, and as your 
uncle only disposed of the principal in his will, you, 
as his heir-at-law, become entitled to this sum of 
fifteen thousand dollars, which I hold subject to 
your order. I hope you will come in person for the 
money, that we ma}^ renew our acquaintance under 
happier circumstances. 

“ Again congratulating you in all sincerity, 

“ I remain, 

“ Geo. D. Livingstone.” 

In imagination, look in at the happy tableau 
within the cottage. Imagine the joy of the inmates. 
James Allen felt that in the minutes immediately 
following the reading of the letter, husband and 
wife should be left alone. 

“ Hurra! ” he cried, picking up his hat. “I want 
but to know one thing now, to make me the hap- 
piest dog alive !” and banging the hall door, he was 
gone. 

Within an hour he did know that “ one thing,” 
for Polly Flitters told him that she loved him. 

Early in the spring, Polly Flitters and James 
Allen were married. It would be a complete failure 
on my part did I attempt a description of Polly's 
bridal dress; for though I was at her wedding, I 
noticed not the color or texture of her robe, so in- 
terested was I with her innocent, happy, pretty face. 

But I have a bewildered recollection that Mrs. 


190 


DEAD BROKE. 


Flitters’ “get up” was something overwhelming, 
grand, awful, in fact, for I saw the verger of the 
church pale and stagger before it, as he showed 
her into a pew, and saw him restored to his normal 
official state by a lively pinch, administered by 
Flitters, as he passed in after his wife. 

“ Where are your gloves. Flitters ?” she asked, 
eying his bare hands. Flitters at once put his hand 
up to the inspiring spot, and, sure enough, there 
lay the white kids. 

Before leaving the house, Mrs. Flitters had given 
these gloves to her husband, with positive instruc- 
tions to wear them, and he had put them in his hat, 
and thus they came to rest on the bald spot. He 
now looked at them, polished his head vigorously, 
and whispered to Mrs. Flitters, 

“ It’s really very extraordinary, my dear. I have 
no idea how — ” 

“ Put them on, sir,” interrupted the able woman, 
severely. 

A few days after Polly and James had set out on 
their bridal tour, Robert made a journey to Tom 
Mahon’s. He had promised Mrs. Mahon to go and 
tell her when his good luck came to him, and now 
it had come, and he was on his way to fulfill his 
promise. You may well believe that the buggy in 
which he rode was filled with presents from Lucie 
to Mrs. Mahon. 

The good woman was making butter when Rob- 
ert drove up to the farm-house. She saw him 
alighting. Down fell dish and butter into the 


DEAD BROKE. 


191 


churn, and out of the house rushed Mrs. Mahon to 
greet him. 

“You have come to tell me of the good luck,” 
she exclaimed. 

“ Indeed I have, Mrs. Mahon,” Robert answered, 
taking both her hands, and giving them a hearty 
shake. 

“God be praised,” she said. “Well, didn’t I 
tell you God was the strongest, praised be His holy 
name. Come into the house. Oh, but you’re more 
welcome than the flowers of June. Here, Pat, 
take Mr. McGregor’s horse, and Johnny, run quick 
and call your father; oh, wont Tom be proud and 
happy when he hears the news. My daughter, 
Kittie, Mr. McGregor. The house is all tossed up, 
but no matter, God be praised. Oh, He was ever 
and always good.” 

And so ran on Mrs. Mahon, while with her check 
apron she wiped away the tears of joy that came 
brimming to her eyes. 

Robert remained with his friends two days, and 
before he left, it was almost settled upon that when 
Tom Mahon got a purchaser for his farm in Michi- 
gan, he would move with his family out West, and 
locate in Robert’s neighborhood, so the latter prom- 
ised to look out for a good location for him ; but he 
had yet to select one for himself. 

The marriage of James changed his and Robert’s 
programme somewhat, as they now resolved to 
bring their wives, and all of Robert’s family along 
with them when they went West, so that they would 


192 


DEAD BROKE. 


be in a position to settle right down, when they 
found a location to suit. This arrangement was 
carried out on the return of Mr. and Mrs. Allen, 
and on the 1st of May the two families left Michi- 
gan for the still farther West, and on the same day 
the Flitters moved into the cottage, having rented 
it from Robert. 

Close to a clear lake, whose shores are shaded 
by magnificent trees, Robert McGregor and James 
Allen, have their homes. Their houses built in the 
timber, are well protected from the cold winds of 
winter, and their farming lands stretch out over 
the broad prairie in front. They have done much 
around their places to add to the beauty of scenery 
that nature had already made beautiful. 

Each enjoys as much happiness as a good wife, 
a pleasant home, and a true friend can give, and 
these can give a good deal. 

The second year after the two families had settled 
out West, Mrs. Flitters was sent for in hot haste, 
and a little while after her arrival, the cry of an 
infant — the sweetest music that ever fell on a 
young mother’s ears — was heard in James Allen’s 
house. 

Shortly after the birth of Polly’s child, Mrs. Flit- 
ters discovered a lucky mole low down on the in- 
fant’s shoulder, and from this discovery, Mrs. Flit- 
ters augurs that when the child grows up, she will 
make a wealthy marriage — the great essential 
for which, the Mrs. Flitters of society suppose 
female babies come into the world. 


DEAD BROKE. 


193 


Now that Flitters has taken his son into partner- 
ship, “ Flitters & Son” being the name of the firm, 
he spends part of every summer with James and 
Robert. The first time he visited them, they 
took him out to hunt, and he handled his gun 
so awkwardly that nothing but his usual good for- 
tune saved him from shooting himself or one or 
other of his friends, so they have selected a safer 
amusement, and take him on fishing excursions. 

He knows nothing of the “ gentle art but that 
makes no difference, he catches more than both 
his friends, and, with the gentlest pity beaming in 
his eyes, he takes the fish off his hook and drops 
them into his basket. 

Simpson, who married his daughter, Anna Maria, 
is now a prosperous merchant. 

Jenkins has been very successful of late, in the 
characters of Bull and Bear, in Wall street; but 
sooner or later, men of his loose principles are apt 
to fall lower and lower in the social scale, nor is 
there likely to be an exception in his case, for his 
friends speak of running him for Congress. 


17 




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clear Lakes and running streams— in a Healthful Climate, where Fever and 
Ague is unknown. 

GRAIN can be shipped hence by lake to market as cheaply as from 
Eastern Iowa, or Central Illinois. Cars now run through these Lands from 
Lake Superior to Dakota. Price of land close to track, SI.OO to $8.00 per 
acre ; further away, S2.50 to $4.00. Seven Years Credit; Warrantee 
Deeds: Northern Pacific 7-30 Bonds, now selling at par, received for 
land at $1.10. No other unoccupied lands present such advantages to 
settlers. 

SOLDIERS, under the New Law, (March, 1872), get 160 acres FREE, 
near the railroad, by one and two years’ residence. 

TRANSPORTATION AT REDUCED RATES 

furnished from all principal points East to purchasers of Railroad Lands, 
and to settlers on Government Homesteads. Purchasers, their wives and 
children, carried free over the Northern Pacific Road. Now is the time 
for Settlers and Colonies to get Railroad Land and Government Home- 
steads close to the track. 

Send for Pamphlet containing full information, map and copy of 
New Homestead Law. Address: LAND DEPARTMENT, NORTHERN 
PACIFIC RAILROAD, ST. PAUL. MINNESOTA, OR 120 BROAD- 
WAY, NEW YORK. 



Oor. Wabashaw and Ponrtb Streets, 

ST- _ ]vniisrdsr- 

N. POTTGrIESER, Proprietor, 


Who wishes to inform the public generally that he has re-fitted and 
thoroughly furnished his house, and hopes for a share of public 
patronage. Charges reasonable. 


LAND AND TOWN LOTS 

Along the Main Line and Branches of 

THE FIRST DIVISION OF THE 

ST. PAUL & PACIFIC 

RAILROAD COMPANY. 


The lands belonging to this Company are the best in the State of 
Minnesota ; they are sold, at low prices for cash, or on long credit if 
desired. 

TOYTVUST I_.OTS, 

In twenty new towns along the Kailroad, at low prices and on credit 
to actual settlers making inprovements. 

To capitalists, the Company offers whole sections of their best 
prairie lands for cultivation, to be paid for 

AFTER THE THIRD CROP, 

At $6 cash, without interest. This will enable experienced farmers 
to make their crops pay for their whole investment. 

The Company will also direct persons of limited means to Govern- 
ment lands along their lines, which can be acquired -FKEE under 
the homestead law. 

For further information, apply to 

HERMANN TROTT, 

Land Commissioner, 

St. Paul,5Minn 


OF SAIIVT 



^ — ^ 

UNITED STATES DEPOSITORY. 

Capital^ $200,000. Surplus, $50,000. 

E. S. EDGERTON, D. A. MONFORT, 

TTesideni, Cashier. 


AND 

TELEGRAPHIC INSTITUTE, 

Corner Third and Jackson Streets, 

• SAINT PAUL. 

The Oldest and Best in the Northwest. 

A FULL CORPS OF ABLE INSTRUCTORS IN EVERY DEPARTMENT. 
For terms and information address, 

W. A. FADDIS, 

Principal. 

Farmers, take Horace Greeley’s advice, and give the boys 
you are raising for farm life six months, at least, in a Business 
College. 


WM. DAWSON. 


R. A. SMITH. 


A. SCHEFFER. 


Dawson & Co., 

BANKERS, 

SAINT FAUr., - - MINNESOTA. 


Drafts on the Principal Cities of the United States and Europe, bought 
and sold. 

COLLECTIONS WILL RECEIVE PROMPT ATTENTION. 


Importer and Wholesale Dealer in 

STAPLE AND FANCY 



IVOTIOTSrS, 

No. 136 Third Street, ST. PAUL. 


Thos. Cochran, Jr. Jas.R. Walsh. 

COCHRAN & WALSH, 

Real Estate and Loans, 

ST. PAUL, - - MINN. 


HOUSE, 

Cor. Washington and Third Avenues, 

The Best Two Dollar House in Minneapolis. 

S. G. DANIELS, Proprietor. 


RUSSELL & CO., 

Oor. OATAEAOT & FIRST STS., MINNEAPOLIS, 


Manufacturers of and Wholesale and Retail Dealers in 

SASH, DOORS, BLIIDS, 

■WOOD MOULDING-S, 

Inside Blinds or Inside Panel Shutters, 

SCROLL SAWING, WOOD TURNING, 

&C., &OC. 

MINNESOTA MUTUAL 

Life Insurance Company. 

OFFICERS : 

HENRY H. SIBLEY, President. D. S. B. JOHNSTON, Vice President. 
H. KNOX TAYLOR, Secretary, D. A. MONFORT, Treasurer. 

J. H. STEWART, M. D,, Medical Director. 


This Company is strictly Mutual, and all profits 
go to the Policy Holders. 

Insure at home, and keep the large amounts of money paid for 
Life Insurance in our own State. The rate of interest is so high, 
and our climate so healthy, that a home company will be able to pay 
Larger Dividends than the best of Eastern companies. 


PACIFIC MARBLE A GRARITE WORKS 


Oor. Seventh & Cedar Streets, St. Paul. 

MARBLE AND S€DTCH ERANITE 

MONUMENTS, 

GHS.A.VE STONES, &co. 


WM. R. MARSHALL, PretUent. H. SAHLGA ARD, (Consul for Sweden 
JOHN S. PRINCE, Cashier. and Norway,) Vice President. 

T. A. PRENDBRGAST, Assistant Cashier. 

The Swings Bank of Saint Paul, 

Formerly Minnesota Savings Association, 

119 THIRD ST., CORNER ROBERT, 

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA. 


O^T=>IT^Ij $100,000. 


Interest at the rate of six per cent, per annum credited to account of 
depositors on first of January and July, thus interest on interest accumu- 
lating if not drawn out. Also, 

GENERAL BANKING BUSINESS, 

Accounts Kept, Collections Made, and Exchange Sold. 

A Special Department for FOREIGN EXCHANGE and PASSAGE 
TICKETS, under the management of H. Sahlgaard, Esq., {late H. Matt- 
son <& Co., whose business has been transferred to this Bank,) State Agent 
for the 

CUNARD LINE OF STEAMERS. 

Passage to and from Europe, and Letters of Credit on European 

cities. 

TRUSTEES: 

W. R, MARSHALL, J. S. PRINCE, H. SAHLGAARD, 

JOHN SUMMERS, H. R. BRILL. 


TXJTMtISH 

Ko. 156 Third Street, Saint Taut, Minn, 

As a means of cure for Kheumatism, Gout, Dyspepsia, Scrofula, Skin 
Diseases, Contracted Limbs, Diseases of Kidneys, Lungs and Air Passages, 
the Liver, Heart and Female AVeaknesses, it is endorsed by the highest 
medical authorities in the world. As a luxurious bath, nothing 
can compare with it. 

Elegant apartments, pleasant heat, perfect ventilation, thorough sham- 
pooing. Special department for ladies. 

(Send for circular.) 

R. SCHIFFMANN, M. D. 


isw Tame Biwrmm. 

In addition to containing the best Vegetable Blood Purifier that 
Botanical research has yet brought to light, or medical skill applied, 
contain, blended in scientific combination, the best known remedies for 
Dyspepsia, Indigestion, Liver Complaint, Bilious Affection, Costive- 
ness. Irregularity of the Bowels. Sick Headache, Dizziness, Nervous 
Prostration, Faintness, Loss of Appetite, General Debility, and all tbe 
ailments arising from Dyspepsia, a diseased or torpid state of the Liver, 
or derangement of the Digestive Organs. 

No better medicine can be used to purify and enrich the blood, 
create a healthy appetite, facilitate the digestion and assimilation of food, 
arrest the process of emaciation, build up. Purify, Regulate, Tone and 
Re-enforce the whole system, and impart Cheerfulness, Vivacity and 
Buoyancy of Spirits. No fancy AVhiskey drink— no humbug— warranted. 

Is the only remedy in the world that is warranted to permanently 
cure Chronic Ulcers, Scrofulous Tumors. Milk Leg, Fever Sores, White 
Swelling, Piles; also, cures Erysipelas, Cuts, Bruises, Scalds, Inflamma- 
tory Rheumatism, Frost Bites, Sprains, Felons, Chilblains and all old 
and Inflammatory Sores of every name and kind. 

Prepared by J. P. ALLEN, Druggist and Pharmacist, St. Paul. 

Trade supplied by NOYES BRO. & CUTLER, 67 Third Street. 


M. F. KENNEDY & BRO., 

THIRD ST., ST. PAUL, 

Manufacturers and Wholesale and Retail Dealers in 

GUNS, RIFLES AND PISTOLS, 

SPORTING APPARATUS, 

CUTLERY, EISHinSTG^ Tj^CKLE, 

Ammunition carefully prepared. 



DEAD BROKE 


A WESTERN TALE. 


By D T L B a N O ’ B R I E N 


FAITH IN GOD. 
FAITH IN MAN. 
FAITH IN FORTUNE. 


SAINT PAUL: 

P I O N E E H C 0 P A N Y P li I X . 

1 87 3 . 


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